






"^ i i O 









4 



A Summer's Outing 



AND 



THE OLD MAN'S STORY 



BY 



CARTER H. HARRISON. 



[ICAGO : 

DIBBLE PUBLISHING CO. 
1891. 



COPYRIGHTED BY 

DIBBLE PUBLISHING CO 

1891 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Y^ 



G. M. D. LIBBY 

PRINTER AND ELECTROTYPER 

CHICAGO 



^t>.-/'^^^ 



PREFACE. 

" A Summer's Outing" comprises letters has- 
tily written while the writer was on the wing. 
Being printed in the Chicago Tribune they 
weie favorably received by many friends, who 
have urged their being published in book form, 
as a thing now needed by would-be tourists to 
the Yellowstone National Park and to Alaska. 
To this end they were revised and somewhat 
enlarged. If the little book be of little value, 
the apology is offered that it will be, too, of little 
cost. 

" The Old Man's Story " is thrown in as fill- 
ing between two covers, and need not be read 
except by those who find an idle hour hard to 

dispose of. 

Carter H. Harrison. 

231 Ashland Boulevard, 

Chicago, May 6th, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The Writer Indulges in Fancies 9 

LETTER I. 

A Run Through Pretty Wisconsin and Minnesota — 
Beautiful St. Paul — ^Jealous}^ Between Twin Cities — 
An Indignant St. Paul Democrat and a Careless 
Seattle Man — Dakota and the Dirty Missouri River 
— A Dissertation on Waste of Land and Destruc- 
tion of Trees — The Bad Lands — The Yellowstone 
River — Gateway to National Park and its Guar- 
dian Eagle 15 

LETTER II. 

The National Park, " The Wonderland of the Globe"— 
The Home of the Evil One — Steam Vents — Ge3's- 
ers — The Grotto— The Giant — The Bee- Hive — 
The Castle and Old Faithful in the Upper Geyser 
Basin 27 

LETTER III. 

Mammoth Hot Springs — A Wonderful Formation — The 
W^hite Elephant — A Theory Accounting for the 
Hot Springs and Ge^'sers — Mud Geysers — Marvel- 
ous Colorings of Some Pools 45 

5 



6 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

LETTER IV. 

How to do the Park — Hotels and Vehicles — My Inno- 
cents — Charming Scenery — Natural Meadows — Wild 
Animals — Beautiful Flowers — Debts to the Devil — 
Camp Life and Fishing — Wonderful Canj-on — 
Painted Rocks — Glorious Waterfalls — Nature Gro- 
tesque and Beautiful 59 

LETTER V. 

We Leave the Park Satisfied — Helena — Its Gold Bear- 
ing Foundations — Broadwater — A Magnificent Nat- 
atorium — A Wild Ride Through Town — Crossing 
the Rockies — Spokane — A Bns}^ Town — Midnight 
Picnic — Fine Agricultural Country — Sage Bush a 
Blessing — Picturesque Run Over the Cascades — 
Acres of Malt Liquors — Tacoma — A Startling- 
Vision of Mt. Renier (Tacoma) — Washington, a 
Great State 82 



LETTER VI. 

Thriving and Picturesque Seattle — Two Curious Meet- 
ings — Victoria and its Flowers — Esquimault and the 
Warspite — Two Broken Hearted Girls — Charming 
Sail on the Island Sea — Picturesque Mountains — 
Growth of Alaska — Whales and their Sports — Na- 
tive Alaskans — Their Homes, Habits, Food, Feasts 
and Wild Music — Baskets and Blankets — Salmon 
Fisheries — Mines and Dogs 102 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



LETTER VII. 



Steaming up the Ice-Packed Fiords and Channels of the 
Arctic Country owned by Uncle Sam — Salmon Can- 
neries — Canoe Building by Natives — Ascent of the 
' ' Muir ' ' Glacier, an Ice Cliff 306 Feet High — Fan- 
tastic Ice Formations at Takou — Summer and Win- 
ter Climates — Impudent Crows and Oratorical 
Ravens 134 

LETTER VIII. 

Vancouver — A Picturesque, Growing City — A Run over 
the Canadian Pacific — Magnificent Scener}- met with 
from the Start — A Glorious Ride — Fraser River 
Glutted with Salmon — A Never-Tiring View from 
Glacier House, Four Thousand Feet above the Sea 
— Rugged, Precipitous Grandeur of the Selkirks and 
Rockies — Natural Beauties of Banff — Reflections at 
the " Soo.'' 162 

CHAPTER IX. 

The St. Mary's River — Charming Scener}- — The Locality 
for Summer Homes — x\n Episode — Mackinaw — 
Grand Rapids, a Beautiful City 196 



PART II. 

"THE OLD MAN'S STORY." 
The Secret of the Big Rock 203 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Carter H. Harrison, (Frontispiece.) 



Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs Page i6 



The Giant, Upper Geyser Basin 

Jupiter Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs.. 

Map Illustrating Geyser Actions 

The Grotto, Upper Geyser Basin 

The Biscuit Bowl, Upper Basin 

Old Faithful 

Grand Canyon 



32 
48 

54 
64 
80 
90 
112 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE WRITER INDULGES IN FANCIES. 

The summer outing is a fad — a necessity of 
fashion. Reigning beauty bares its brow on 
ocean waves and climbs mountain heights, court- 
ing sun-kisses. Jaunty sailor hats and narrow 
visored caps are donned, that the amber burning 
of the summer's excursion may be displayed at 
early assemblies of heraldic Four Hundred. 
Anglo-mania has taught at least one good les- 
son — that the russet cheek of romping health is 
more kiss-tempting than the rose-in-cream of 
beauty lolling on dowu}^ cushions. Elite closes 
its massive doors and draws down front window 
shades ; Paterfamilias sweats in his struggle to 
force a balance to the credit side, and mothers 
and daughters sit at back windows in glare of 
sunlight, wooing sun-beams, while notices of 
'^Out of town" are alread}^ placarded on front 
stoops. 

The summer outing is urged b}^ honest doc- 
tors, with the admission that change of air and 
scene is oftentimes worth more than all the nos- 
trums doled out over apothecaries' counters. 
Motion is nature's first inexorable law. A tiny 
drop of water is pressed between two plates of 
glass, apparenth^ rendering the slightest motion 
impossible. The microscope fills it with scores 



lO INTRODUCTION. 

or hundreds of beings full of life and energy, 
disporting in pleasure or waging deadly battle. 
Around us and about us nothing is still. The 
grasses grow in refreshing green and spring be- 
neath the feet, but ere the wane of day, wither 
and crackle under the tread. Flowers bloom in 
beauty and within the hour fade in ugliness. 
The rock ribs of earth expand and contract 
under tidal commands of sun and moon, and 
continents lift from, or are sinking beneath 
briny oceans. 

The gleaming sun, so rounded in glowing 
calmness as he gently circles across the vaulted 
sky, is a raging mass of countless millions boil- 
ing, dashing, burning jets, i» anyone of which 
fiery Vesuvius would be lost as a dim spark. 
Myriads of starry spheres flecking the midnight 
sky, are mighty suns tortured by inconceivable 
convulsions. Far off beyond them the telescopic 
lens dips up from limitless space countless suns, 
all boiling, roaring and raging in unending, 
monstrous motion. 

Motion evolves change. Change goes on 
everywhere, declares science! Change, cries 
orthodoxy, is universal save in One — the ever- 
lasting, unchangeable maker of all things ! 
Orthodoxy tells us that man — man the soul 
— , was made in God's image and was by him 
pronounced good. The. " good " in God's eye must 



INTRODUCTION. II 

be perfect. We know that man — the soul man — 
grows — the perfect therefore grows and perfection 
becomes more perfect. A Paradox ! So is that 
mathematical truth that two parallel lines drawn 
towards infinity, meet. 

The deathless soul emanates from God. 
Is the question irreverent? May not the 
Eternal who started then and keeps all things 
moving and growing — may not He grow in per- 
fection ? May not the Omnipotent become more 
potent, the Omniscient wiser ? Being given to 
digression, I give this in advance to save the 
reader one later on. 

In obedience to fashion's and nature's law, I \ 
would put myself in* motion and would seek 
change. I will take an " outing " in this sum- 
mer of A. D. 1890. 

My daughter, a school girl, will go with me. 
The old and those growing old, should attach to 
themselves the young. Old tree trunks in 
tropical climes wrap themselves in thrifty grow- 
ing vines. The green mantle wards off the sun's 
hot rays, and prevents to some extent too rapid 
evaporation. Gray-haired grandfathers often- 
times delight to promenade with toddling grand- 
children. This is good for momentary divertise- 
ment, but for steady regimen it is a mistake. 
Callow childhood furnishes not to the old, proper 
companionship. The unfledged but intense vi- 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

tality of the one may sap the slow-running cur- 
rent of the other, and reduce it to the lower 
level — to second childhood. Age should tie to 
itself ripening youth. Then heart and spring- 
tide is absorbed by the older, and ripe experience 
given to the younger in exchange. 

We resolve to do the Yellowstone National 
Park, by way of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 
thence onward to Puget Sound and Alaska to re- 
turn by the Canadian Pacific. We hope for 
health, pleasure and brain food, I shall write 
of our goings and comings, that my friends at 
home may through our eyes feel that they are 
voyaging with us. 

A beautiful or grand scene is doubly enjoyed 
when one feels he may through a letter have 
hundreds see what he sees and as he sees. They 
become his companions and hold sweet com- 
munion with him, though thousands of miles 
may lie between them. This is sympathy, and 
sympathy makes the joy of life. The tete-a-tete 
between lovers ''beneath the milk-white thorn 
that scents the evening gale," is delicious. But not 
more sweet than the communion between the 
orator and the mighty audience which he sways 
and bends at will. He holds a tete-a tete with 
each of his listeners. 

Byron swore he " loved not the world, nor the 
world him." The bard was self-deceived. He 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

wrote that lie might win the sympathy of mil- 
lions. Bayard Taylor told the writer once that he 
wrote from an irresistible impulse. His warm, 
generous nature yearned for the sympathy of a 
reading world. I shall write that a few hundred 
may see through my eyes — may feel when my 
heart beats, and for a few brief hours may be in 
sympathy with me. Some one possibly may 
sneer ''Cacoethes Scribendi." Catch the retort, 
" Honi soit qui Mal-y-pense." 



LETTER I. 

A RUN THROUGH PRETTY WISCONSIN AND MINNE- 
SOTA. BEAUTIFUL ST. PAUL. JEALOUSY BE- 
TWEEN TWIN CITIES. AN INDIGNANT ST. 
PAUL DEMOCRAT AND A CARELESS SEATTLE 
MAN. DAKOTA AND THE DIRTY MISSOURI 
RIVER. A DISSERTATION ON WASTE OF LAND 
AND DESTRUCTION OF TREES. THE BAD 
LANDS. THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER. GATE- 
WAY TO NATIONAL PARK AND ITS GUARDIAN 
EAGLE. 

Mammoth Hot Springs, July 17, 1890. 
We left' Chicago by the Wisconsin Central 
Railroad for St. Paul. From the beginning the 
run was interesting, especially to one who re- 
members what the country was thirty-five years 
ago — an almost flat prairie of tangled grass, in 
which the water was held as in a morass, prom- 
ising but little to the ambitious earth-tiller. I 
recall a remark of Senator Douglas when the 
future of our flat prairies was being discussed in 
my presence thirty-five years ago : " People do 
not realize that the drainage problem is being 
now daily solved. The leader of a herd of cattle 
browsing the prairies, is an engineer, and his 
followers faithful laborers in making ditches. 
When going to and from their grazing grounds, 
they march in line and tread down paths which 

15 



i6 A summer's outing. 

make no mean drains. The cattle of Illinois are 
annually lifting millions of acres out of the 
swamp into good arable lands." 

As soon as the Des Plaines was crossed, good 
farms began, and comfortable farm houses were 
always in sight ; oats bent and waved in light 
green, and corn stood sturdy in emerald, where 
a third of a century ago, even in July, a pedes- 
trian was compelled to step from ant-hill to 
ant-hill to keep his ankles dry. Copses of 
young wood relieved the monotony of too much 
flatness, and in a few hours after our start, pretty 
lakes shimmered in the sinking sun light, and 
sweetly homelike villas were ever in view. We 
crossed the Wisconsin line, and hill and vale or 
gentle undulations with wooded heights and 
flowing streams, and villages and saw mills en- 
livened the journey. 

In the distant future when population shall 
become abundant, and tasteful homesteads shall 
replace somewhat speculative shanties, few coun- 
tries of the world will be more pleasingly rural 
than southern and middle Wisconsin. 

Books should be carried by the tourist in his 
trunk, and newspapers should be religiously dis- 
carded throughout the run to St. Paul. The 
country traversed opens many a pleasing page 
during the summer months, and glowing pic- 
tures are spread before him on nature's living 



MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 17 

canvass. He unfortunately loses mucli when 
the curtain of night is drawn over God's own 
impartial book : the book Vv^hich never misleads 
if carefully read and studiousl}^ digested. 

At St. Paul we had some hours to ride about 
the pretty town, before boarding the Northern 
Pacific railroad for our long journey to Puget's 
Sound. This great road has the singular char- 
acteristic of having double termini at each end, 
and between each of the twins there exists a 
feud rarely found except between cities engaged 
in actual war with each other. 

Athens and Sparta hated each other not as do 
St. Paul and Minneapolis. Just now, owing to 
the taking of the census, there is blood in the 
eye of ever}^ St. Paulite. An elderl}^ gentleman 
introduced himself to me the other day at the 

station. After a while he said: "It is a 

shame the way the United States is treating St. 
Paul. I am a Democrat, sir, and can stand a 
little stuffing of the ballot-box, but I draw the 
line there. I can't stand the stuf&ng of the cen- 
sus. We are willing to concede to Minneapolis 
10,000 more population than we have, but Har- 
rison ought to be turned out of of6.ce for running 
it up to 40,000. It is a fraud, sir — a miserable 
Republican fraud. We will be revenged, sir, 
and will show our teeth next fall and don't you 
forget it." I sympathized with him and felt like 



i8 A summer's outing. 

marcliing to Washington at once to send my 
cousin Ben back to Hoosierdom. 

In the National Park I saw at four different 

hotels the names of Mr. Mrs. and two 

little blanks. There was a bracket after the 
names, but the writer had evidently forgotten to 
write in the address. The name preceding his 
on the first book was from Boston. At the next 
place the preceding person was from New York, 
and again from some other city. The fourth 
day at dinner I was introduced to the head of 
the family. He was from Seattle. I asked him 
why it was he had not put in his address, declar- 
ing I would tell it on him at Tacoma. " Good 
Heavens ! " he exclaimed, " have I done that?" 
He rushed back to the register and wrote 
'' Seattle " as big as a John Hancock. The next 
time we met in a crowd, I twitted him about the 
thing. He then declared he must have left out 
the address instinctively from a natural aversion 
to being known to come from any spot so close 
to Tacoma. Considerable jealousy of St. Paul 
on the part of her twin city is natural, for it is a 
beautiful towm. Its residences on the hills are 
very fine, and their locations lovely be^^ond 
those of all but few cities. The entire town was 
very clean, and in the hill portion bright and 
cheerful. The residences are generally sur- 
rounded by considerable grounds, filled with 



MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 1 9 

trees and shrubbery, in much variety and in 
luxuriant growth. The young girl with me fell 
so completely in love with the clean, pretty 
place, that she declared, if she ever got married 
it would be to a St. Paul man. 

The run through Minnesota is as if through 
a great park. Everything is green and bright. 
Copse, meadow and field are as fresh as a May 
morning. The natural location of frequent 
wooded clumps, of prairie openings and of lakes, 
could hardly be improved by a landscape engi- 
neer. We passed the great wheat fields of Da- 
kota at night, but I thought there was far less 
of barren plain and alkali patches as we ap- 
proached the Missouri river, than I saw there 
seven years ago. 

How different the feelings with which we ap- 
proached the Missouri from those experienced as 
we drew near the Mississippi ! One cannot get 
up a feeling of respect for the tortuous, treach- 
erous, muddy, long and snake-like ditch. One 
takes off his hat to the Father of Waters, but 
feels like kicking, if he had a place to kick, this 
lengthy, nasty thing. No one can see any real 
use for it, except as a tributary to and feeder of 
the Mississippi. It has not and never had a 
placid infancy. Several of its upper feeders are 
beautiful, clear, rapid, purling streams. But 
some of them apparently without rhyme or 



20 A summer's outing. 

reason suddenly become flowing mud. ' One 
dashes on a train along one and wishes he could 
alight to cast a fly for a speckled beauty. The 
road takes a turn around a mountain spur, and 
lol the crystal stream has become liquid mud, to 
prepare itself, I suppose, for the mucky thing it 
will soon join. Possibly and probably, these 
transformations are owing to a miner's camp and 
a placer washing on the other side of the spur. 

North Dakota has not become settled along 
the railroad, after quitting the great wheat belt, 
as I expected. Farms are very scattered, and 
when seen are small and wear an air of neglect. 
Yet the native plains are cheerful looking and 
roll off in green undulations. The Forest 
Commissioners, if there be au}^, must find some 
more hardy species of trees than those now used 
to enable them to grow brakes for warding off 
the winds and blizzards. The railroad people 
have planted many trees, but they do not thrive. 
They seem alive about the roots, but dead after 
reaching one or two feet. Possibly a blanket of 
snow lies about the roots in winter and protects 
them ; but the alternation of cold and hot winds 
apparently kills the sap as it rises higher up. 
Government should inaugurate a thorough 
system of arboriculture, inviting and encouraging 
a real science. 

The Socialists say the Nation should own the 
land. To a certain degree the Socialists are 



MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 21 

right. The fountain of land ownership is in the 
Government. It should maintain such owner- 
ship to a certain extent throughout all time. 
''The earth is the Lord's and the fullness there- 
of" Government is and should be the lord of 
the domain, and should never part with such con- 
trol as may prevent private owners from destroy- 
ing the land which is to be the heritage of the 
people to the latest generation. It should forbid 
and prevent a waste of land. To this end it 
should force the husbanding of all resources for 
the improvement of that which is to support the 
people for all time. No private owner should be 
allowed to destroy wantonly that which comes 
from mother earth. What comes from the bosom 
of the land, and is not essential to feed and 
maintain the cultivator, should be given back to 
it. A man should be fined who burns manure. 
Man should not cut timber to such an extent as 
to reduce a necessary rainfall. Commissioners 
should determine from scientific data, how much 
of forest is necessary in fixed districts of the 
cou'itry, and when so determined no one should 
be permitted to cut a tree without replacing it 
by a young one. In the Old World millions of 
acres are now worthless which once supported 
teeming populations; all because they have been 
denuded of trees. Nearly all European countries 
as well as India are now, and have been for some 



22 A summer's outing. 



years, earnestly endeavoring to check this evil. 
Commissioners of Forestry, earnest and educated 
men, have been appointed. Schools of Forestry 
are fostered by the state. The betterment has 
been so marked, that the ordinary pleasure seek- 
ing traveler sees a wonderful change between 
visits separated b}^ twenty or thirty years. 
America has countless millions of acres scarcely 
capable of supporting a human being, which 
could be made to wave in cereals or grow^ fat in 
edible roots, if only trees were grown to induce 
a somewhat regular rainfall. 

The arid plains of the Great West have the 
richest of known soils, if a little human sweat 
mixed with water in sufficient quantity could 
be kneaded into it. Government as the lord 
paramount of its domain, should force the grow- 
ing of trees and should prevent the destruction 
of timber wherever the same is necessary to keep 
up or improve the land. It has parted with the 
title to the soil, but still retains the power to use 
it for its own support. It levies and collects 
taxes from lands as the paramount owner. The 
same power exists to prevent the waste of that 
from which its taxes spring or through which its 
people may live. 

'' No one is a man," says the Arab maxim, 
'^ until he has planted a tree, dug a well, and 
grown a boy," The nation is an aggregation of 



MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 23 

men and should follow the maxim. The states- 
man who devises a good system of taxation is 
entitled to the praises of all men, but he is but 
a pigmy to the man who turns sterile deserts 
into places of plenty, or who make many blades 
of grass grow where now only one springs up. 
I am ready to bow down before the man who will 
maintain and improve the soil of our Eastern 
States, or will shower over the West a copious 
rainfall. 

Bismark was disappointing. It has not im- 
proved as could have been expected since we 
helped to lay the corner-stone of its Capitol 
seven years ago. 

BAD LANDS OR " MAUVAISES THRRES." 

The " bad lands " are as God-forsaken in ap- 
pearance as they were years since. There the 
very earth has been burned and the Evil One 
seems to have set his foot-print on every rod. 
Men do live in them, but more blessed is he who 
dies in genial surroundings ! What a hold 
upon us has the love of life ! So short and such 
a bauble ! How worthless when robbed, as it 
must be in this bleak tract, of every concomitant 
of the joyful! Only the All-powerful can re- 
claim the soil of the " bad lands," and not until a 
cataclysm has carried it 1,000 fathoms beneath 
the sea, will it be fitted for sunlight and ready to 



24 A summer's outing. 

support life. It has been burned up with the 
coals and lignites which underlaid the surface. 
After striking the Yellowstone Valley the ride 
westward becomes pretty. The mountains are 
bold, with fine outlines, often lifting in pictur- 
esque precipices from the water's edge. Great 
strata of coal are frequently seen stretching in 
level parallel lines for considerable distances. 
Snow appears in seams and gorges on the 
loftiest heights. While not offering as grand 
displa3^s as are seen in one or two points of 
other across-the-continent roads, the Northern 
Pacific presents more varied scenery, and far 
more that is pleasing and restful to the e3^e, than 
any other except the Canadian Pacific. 

To most travelers much of the scenery of the 
Northern Pacific until Helena is reached is mo- 
notonous. But to one disposed to be a student 
of nature and a lover of its varied forms, many 
instructive lessons can be conned from the car 
window, and mau}^ pleasing pictures hastily en. 
joyed. The Yellowstone, along whose banks 
the road runs for three hundred and fifty miles, 
is a cheerful stream. When fi^rst reached it is 
muddy, but after the mouths of one or two large 
affluents have been passed it becomes clear and 
limpid. Its flow is almost constantly rapid and 
turbulent. But few still reaches are seen, and 
these are rarely over a mile or so in length. On 



MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. 25 

one or the other bank considerable mountains 
lift from the water's edge, in loft}^, clea.-cut 
precipices. The upper slopes have but few 
trees and rareh^ au}^ clumps or masses, but of- 
fer much variet}' in earth coloring. Light 
brown, sometimes deepening into chocolate, is 
the dominant tone. There are frequent stretches 
of 3'ellow, here and there flecked with patches or 
bands of Venetian red. This latter sometimes 
takes a tint so bright as to merit being called 
vermilion. 

At Livingston, a thousand and odd miles from 
St. Paul, we left the Northern Pacific, and b}- a 
narrow-gauge road continued up the Yellow- 
stone, fift3^-one miles to Cinuabar; thence by 
Park coaches, wagonettes and surreys, eight 
miles along the wildly rushing Gardner river, 
and through a narrow defile hemmed in by 
lofty precipices beneath frowning crags — the 
gatewa}^ to the park — to the " Alammoth Hot 
Springs." Xear the gateway- on a loft}^ pinnacled 
rock, so slender as at first to be mistaken for 
the trunk of a huge tree, sat an eagle upon its 
e3'rie, keeping watch and ward over the entrance 
to the people's pleasure ground. The bird's 
nest is built of loose sticks laid upon the rock}^ 
point, which is not broader than a good-sized 
tree stump. How it withstands the dash of 
storms, Avhich often rage through the narrow 



26 A summer's outing. 

pass, is a marvel. Yet it has been there for 
many years, and each year sends forth it young 
brood. I regret to say this eagle is not the gen- 
nine American screamer, which so grandly 
spreads its wings upon the daddy's dollar, but is 
the great white-headed fish-hawk. He is easil}^ 
mistaken for the bald eagle, but is smaller and a 
somewhat sociable bird, building his home near 
by those of others of his species. The true eagle is 
sullen and solitary, and chooses his eyrie many 
miles removed from his fellows. Indeed he 
spurns all fellowship with his kind. 

All tourists delight to look at the "Devils 
Slide" in the Gardner canyon. It is from five 
to six hundred feet high, a few feet broad, be- 
tween thin slate dykes, and as smooth as a tobog- 
gan way. As there is no record that the father 
of lies was acquainted with sand paper, there is 
a peculiar pleasure in imagining the grinding 
away of the seat of his trousers, while he was 
polishing down his coaching slide. In spite of 
what the preachers say, there is no doubt that 
man, woman and child hate the devil, and are 
delighted by any evidence of annoyance to him. 



LETTER II. 



THE NATIONAL PARK, THE WONDERLAND OF 
THE GLOBE." THE HOME OF THE EVIL ONE. 
STEAM VENTS. GEYSERS. THE GROTTO. 
THE GIANT. THE BEE HIVE. THE CASTLE 
AND OLD FAITHFUL IN THE UPPER GEYSER 
BASIN. 

Grand Canyon, 
Yellowstone National Park, July 22. 

American dudes of both sexes wandering 
about the world have been sorely perplexed be- 
cause Uncle Sam has had no huge ships of war 
with which to display his grandeur in foreign 
ports, and no embassadorial residences in which 
Yankee heels may air themselves to advantage. 
When foreigners have made allusion to our 
poverty in this regard, and their own wealth of 
splendor, we have been forced to fall back upon 
the Yankee's retort, "Yes; but you hain't got 
no Niagary." Luckily but few of those who 
taunted us were aware that Niagara was simply 
located in the United States but did not belong 
to it. But now we can throw back at the 
effete denizens of other lands "the wonderland 
of the globe," — The Yellowstone National Park — 
in which there is more of the marvelous sports 
of nature than exists in the entire outer world 
besides. We can tell them of these wonders, and 

27 



28 A summer's outing. 

can then say that these marvels are the Nation's, 
and that this park of over 3,500 square miles is 
maintained by the Nation for the people, for 
their amusement and recreation. It is to be re- 
gretted that more of the surplus which has been 
lying idle in the treasury vaults has not been ex- 
pended to enable the people to better enjoy their 
wealth of wonders. The people may read of 
their treasures ; they may see folios of illustra- 
tions, but no one can comprehend them without 
seeing them ; no pen pictures can bring them 
before the eye of one who has not been here ; no 
photograph can display their forms and then dye 
them in their wondrous colors ; no painter can 
spread them upon canvas, for he would at once 
be put down as an artistic liar. The simple 
truth is an exaggeration, and a precise copy is a 
distortion of nature's molds. 

THE EVII. spirit's abode. 

No wonder the Indians have given this sec- 
tion of the country a wide berth, for well might 
they believe it the home of the evil spirit. One of 
them straying here might wander for days and 
never mount an elevated point without being 
able to count scores of columns of white steam 
lifting above the trees from different points of 
the forest, telling him of the wigwams of the 
evil one. If he stole along the valleys, he 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 29 

would come upon pools of water of cr3^stal clear- 
ness tempting in appearance to the thirsty ; some 
of them not larger than the blanket which cov- 
ered his shoulders, others so large that the 
tepees of half his tribe would not cover their 
area; some mere jagged holes in the rock, oth- 
ers with rims a foot or so in height, and as reg- 
ular as his pipe of peace. Here are some a f©w 
inches or a few feet in depth, with bottoms and 
sides painted in rainbow tints ; there are others 
with deep sunken walls embossedand tufted, and 
dyed with the colors of the setting sun, and with 
dark throats so deep that they seem to be 
yawning from fathomless depths. Here they 
are as placid as the eye of the papoose 
hanging at the squaw mother's back. Our 
Indian pauses at the painted brink of one, 
dips his hand into the tempting fluid — 
jerks it back quickly, but perhaps not before 
it is scalded. There they boil up one, two, three 
or more feet and appear as though they would 
pour out a flood from below, but not a drop 
passes over the rim of the pool. The boiling 
motion is from volumes of steam working its 
way through the waters from the bowels of the 
earth and spreading upon the breeze. Boiling 
waterelsewhere wastes itself away, but these pools 
boil and boil from year to year, and scarcely 
vary perceptibly in height. Our untutored 



30 A summer's outing. 

tourist turns his eye upon the mountain border- 
ing the valley, whose sides are so encrusted with 
geyserite deposit that it appears to have 
been formed of this material, and to have been 
erected by boiling springs ; along its whitened 
side and far up on its crest are springs 
or vents, from which arise columns of lifting 
steam and the mountain seems to roar ; startled, 
he hears close to his feet, a gurgling sound such 
as comes from an animal whose throat is newly 
cut. His eye seeks the spot whence comes this 
sound of death. He sees an orifice in the ground 
not large enough to take in his body, but from 
it comes the death rattle a hundred times louder 
than the largest buffalo could make when 
pierced about its heart. The Evil Spirit is slay- 
ing an animal so huge that if he were on the 
ground its tread would shake the earth. 

A WONDERFUL PLATEAU. 

He climbs over a mountain spur and sees 
spread before him a white plateau of several 
hundred acres. Jets of steam are pouring from 
a thousand points of its surface, some rising only 
a few feet, others lifting 500 feet into the air; 
here from fountains boiling merely, or spouting 
up to one, two, or more feet ; there from simple 
vent holes in the nearly level surface of the 
plain. Some pour from fantastic forms — great 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 3 1 

stumps of trees with one side torn away ; from 
piles of downy cushions ; from great platters of 
biscuit, a part as white as dough, others crisp 
and brown ; from ruined castles ; from orifices 
bordered by mighty, parted, Ethiopian lips of 
whitish gra}^ tone or painted red and brown. 
One is fashioned like an old time conical straw 
bee-hive. So well is the model copied, that no 
great stretch of imagination w^ould be required 
to enable one to hear the buzz of busy 
honey makers sw^arming about it. Another 
is a rude cabin chimney with steam lifting 
from its top, in lieu of smoke curling 
from a woodman's fire. 

He approaches one which might once have 
been a grotto, with stalagmites and stalactites 
forming its ribs and roof, but the super- 
incumbent earth having been removed, the 
stony skeleton is laid bare, partly a dozen 
or more feet above the ground and partly 
sunken below. From its hollow pit comes a 
roaring sound not unlike the growl of a lion 
when feeding, only of a king of beasts many 
fold enlarged. He hears close by it a noise he 
takes to be the call of a familiar bird. There is 
no bird in sight, but near his feet in the rocky 
platform is a small vent he could close with his 
thumb ; it is breathing, but its breath is high 
heated steam ; its inspiration is a gentle gurgle, 
its expiration is the blue jay's call. 



32 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

Its breath comes from deep below, from the 
lungs of the monster whose stertorous breathing 
is an indication that he is turning over in his 
hidden lair ; and as he turns he belches forth a 
mouthful of steam and water through the 
grotto. He has evidently eaten something dis- 
agreeable and is sick in the regions of the maw, 
for up comes another and a larger mouthful ; 
and then another and more, until he pours out 
his very insides in tons of boiling w^ater. 
Through every opening of the grotto's frame, 
water and steam rush forth in mighty volume. 
Thousands of gallons to the minute lift in jets 
ten to thirty feet through each opening, and run 
in great streams to the crystal river a little way 
below. The monster bellows, the vents about 
the grotto's base whistle, the water splashes, and 
the steam rushes, scalding hot. After a while 
— perhaps in twenty or thirty minutes — all flow- 
ing ceases, and a column of steam pours out for 
perhaps an hour and lifts several hundred feet 
into the air. 

"the giant" in action. 

While this strange action is being seen, close 
by, a rumbling noise is heard in the depths of 
"The Giant," 200 or 300 yards away. The 
noise increases, not unlike that of an approach- 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 33 

ing railroad train, and is soon accompanied by a 
discharge of water three or more feet in diameter 
at the ge^'ser nozzle, lifted in an almost vertical 
column 150 to 200 feet high, all enveloped in a 
veil of steam. This pours through the top of a 
geyserite formation some ten feet high, and a 
dozen or fifteen from out to out — a monster 
stump, broken and jagged as if a monarch of 
the forest had been snapped off b}' a mighty 
storm blast. 

The flood drops all about in spra^^, veiling 
the lifted column, and is of such quantity that 
the river nearh' seventy-five feet wide, is doubled 
in depth when the monster is in action. 

Our accidental red tourist has lost his 
Indian stoicism, and wishes to see something 
more of the Devil's doings. The "Giant" having 
become silent, he steals along the white forma- 
tion a few hundred yards, when, from a small 
hole in the ground, without any warning, up 
shoots a beautiful little geyser about twenty feet 
high, a perfect spreading jet d'eau, accompanied 
b}' no steam and lasting only perhaps a quarter 
of a minute. The action of this little jet over, 
every drop of its lifted water flows back into its 
mouth and disappears down its throat ; but not 
for long, for it again shoots up in four minutes, 
and is so regular in its action, that it has been 
christened "Young Faithful." 



34 A SOniER S OUTIXG. 

The plateau here spoken of — "The upper ge^^ser 
basin" — is two or more miles long and of irregular 
width, probabl}' averaging a third of a mile. It 
is all white with encrusted ge3'serite deposit 
often giving out a hollow sound to the tread. 
This deposit varies in thickness from a few 
inches to several feet. It is gra^ush white, 
resembling tarnished frozen snow. 

THE SPEEXDID — 200 FEET HIGH. 

But see that noble column spouting 200 feet 
high in a somewhat slanting stream not far 
from a quarter of a mile away. Close b}' a smaller 
jet shoots obliquely, mingling its spray with the 
larger one. The tourist is too far removed to 
see the brilliant rainbow formed in the mino;- 
ling spra}'. But let him wait some hours and he 
ma}^ visit it again to witness another active erup- 
tion from the ''Splendid Ge3^ser," which jDOurs 
four times a da}^ from a simple hole in the rock, 
and has as vet builded himself no orevserite 
nozzle. A short walk brings one to the 
"Devil's Punch Bowl/' where the old Fiend 
takes his nocturnal nip, from a basin a few feet 
in diameter, inclosed b}^ an embossed rim a foot 
high and as regular as the raised edge of a 
Dresden punch bowl, and always boiling and 
seething to keep the tipple hot and read\\ 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 35 

In this plateau are hundreds of pools of exquis- 
ite colorings, and scores of geysers lifting more or 
less regularly and at shorter or longer intervals; 
some of the intervals being of hours, others of 
days and others still measured only by minutes. 
The geysers are all named in accordance with 
a supposed resemblance of their formation to 
some known thing, or to the character, size or 
quality of their eruptions ; "The Queen," "The 
King," "The Bee-hive," "The Castle," "The 
Princess," "Old Faithful," "The Excelsior," 
"The Splendid" and so on. The pools take their 
names generally from the colorings of their rims 
or sides, or of the water held in them, as "The 
"Emerald," "The Amethyst," "The Sunset," 
"The Rainbow" and "The Morning Glory." 
Some of the pools are named from the nature of 
their boilings, others from the rock formation in 
their throats and about their sides ; "The 
Biscuit Bowl," "The Snow-ball," "The Spouter." 
Many of the names are by no means far fetched. 
The "Biscuit Bowl," for example, resembles a 
mass of well formed monster breakfast rolls, 
some in whitened dough, others in all stages of 
brown from the half done to the well baked. 

The tourist approaches a flattened cone, with a 
base 600 or 800 feet in circumference, and fifty feet 
high, surmounted by the ruins of an old castle. 
The ownerofthe"Castle" has been growlingall day 



36 A summer's outing. 

and emiting an unsual amount of steam. He is 
evidently preparing to erupt, which he does at 
intervals of several days. His terrific growlings 
increase as the day wears on, and angry spurts 
of boiling water accompanied by steam show he 
is getting his temper up to white heat. He has 
been quiet for an unusual time of late and when 
aroused, like Othello, he will be fearfully moved. 
He makes a few angry premonitory belches and 
bellows. The noise is accompanied by a tremb- 
ling of the earth for hundreds of yards. A mass 
of water is then ejected from 50 to 100 feet up, 
mixed with steam in dense mass. The flow of 
water is of short duration; but is of thousands of 
tons, and is followed by an emission of steam 
large enough to run an ocean steamer. This 
steam escape can be heard for a mile or more, and 
sounds like the roar made by a Long Island Sound 
steamer blowing salt from its boilers. The noise 
is continuous for an hour ; it gradually lessens, 
however, until it ceases entirely. Steam is then 
lazily emitted continuously, and a loud gurgling 
noise is constant deep down in the Geyser throat. 
This is more or less the case with nearly all of 
the geysers. A few, however, become so quiet, 
that very close attention is necessary to catch 
any boiling noise. The "Castle" geyser blows 
off for hours before his steam generators are 
cleaned. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 37 

IT SCARES THE WHITE MAN. 

Our red cheeked tourist has stoicism, but he 
cannot stay over this Devil's kitchen long enough 
to see half of the mighty vents in action. One, 
which but rarely plays, shakes the very earth. 
A good white man, who flatters himself that he 
is a child of God and believes in sovereign reign- 
ing grace, is struck by it with awe akin to terror. 

But there is one geyser which becomes famil- 
iar to the civilized tourist and seems to win from 
him a sort of affection, because of his consci- 
entious behavior. His very regularity, however, 
would strike the more terror into the heart of 
the untutored red man. He has built his home 
under a mound 300 yards in circumference and 
twenty or so feet high at its apex, upon which he 
has cast a geyserite chimney ten to fifteen feet 
high and six or eight in diameter. This chimney 
he has ornamented within and without with 
huge tufted beads, and painted those within 
with rose and white, orange and brown, red and 
grey. These adjuncts, however, do not compare 
to those of many others, for some of them seem 
to have wrapped their throats in great pillows, 
hard as gypsum, but looking as soft and tufty 
as if made of swans down, while others have 
painted their inside linings with all the tints of 
the rainbow; and their crystal clear water seems 
to have caught the cerulean blue from the heav- 
ens and are holding it in solution. 



38 A summer's outing. 

But to return to this geyser; for nearly an hour 
he has been as quiet as a lamb, just enough of 
steam arising from his throat to show he is gent- 
ly breathing. The steam breath gradually 
grows and is exhaled with more vigor. Present- 
ly he belches up a barrel or so of water which 
falls back into his throat. Then in a minute 
come two or three such little spasms, when up 
lifts a rounded column two or three feet in diam- 
eter, rising higher and higher in exact perpen- 
dicularity 150 feet high. The jet breaks more 
or less as it rises into pointed sprays, which, 
when there is no wind blowing, fall with almost 
precise regularity about the up going column. 

WATCHES ARE SET BY IT. 

In about five minutes the jet of water ceases, 
but is followed by considerable steam emis- 
sions for a quarter of an hour, when one can 
look down into his throat and see the crystal 
water ten to fifteen feet below the apex, and all 
quiet and still. So regular is the action of this 
geyser that one could, by watching it, almost 
dispense with a watch. He never pla37S in less 
than sixty-three minutes, and never delays ac- 
tion longer than seventy. Indeed, some of his 
most constant admirers declare these variations 
are the fault of watches, not of " Old Faithful." 
Thus he is named, and as such is known far 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 39 

and near. There are several of these geyser- 
basins scattered over the park from ten to twenty- 
five miles apart, the principal ones being the "Nor- 
ris," the " Lower Geyser Basin " and the '' Up- 
per Geyser Basin." These are reached in snc- 
cession on the tonrist road from " Mammoth 
Hot Springs." 

The regnlar tourist, starting from Mammoth 
Hotel, dines at the " Norris " and sleeps at the 
" Lower Basin." The next day, if he prefers to 
go on with his coach, he passes the*' Excelsior," 
which is the hugest of all the geysers, and has 
been for two or three years nearly quiet, but 
this year is in tolerable eruption. It is a vast 
pool, possibly over two hundred feet in diameter. 
When quiet, water about twenty feet below the 
pool rim boils, seethes and tosses in horrible mo- 
tion. It erupted just as our party reached it, 
but not in one of its grand actions. A mass of 
water possibly many feet in diameter was lifted 
fifty or more feet in the air. It is said that when 
in full eruption the height of the column is from 
two to three hundred feet. This I doubt. The 
mass of steam enveloping the jet is so great that 
the water column is entirely hidden, and has 
given rise to exaggeration on the part of those 
who have seen it at its best. The basin of the 
Excelsior is called " Hell's half acre," and it is 
by no means a misnomer, for the earth trembles, 



40 A summer's outing. 

and tlie roar when the ge^^serjs in action is that 
of an earthquake, while great stones are scattered 
about for several hundred feet. Close b}^ it are 
the " Prismatic Springs " and the " Turquoise." 
The first is two or more hundred feet in diame- 
ter and is a placid mass of scalding water. It 
has various depths ; in the center where very 
deep, it is of an indigo blue which shades off 
into a bluish green ; then where very shallow, 
it runs off into 3'ellow, orange, red and brown, 
w^hile some circles are white. It is a marvel of 
beauty. The color of the Turquoise is precisely 
described by its name. 

The whole park plateau is filled with hot 
springs, which are building up elevations 
with their deposit and mounting them as they 
build. The water is all clear as cr3'Stal, but 
holds in solution lime, iron, sulphur and other 
minerals, w^hich it deposits sufficiently fast to 
encrust a key, horseshoe, or other piece of metal 
in three or four days with a solid enamel — say 
the sixteenth of an inch in thickness — and of 
the appearance of second-class white sugar. 

The geysers eject, w^hen in action, large 
quantities of water, but the springs, though 
boiling and spouting, and appearing to be lifting 
much water, flow over their rims in ver}^ small 
streams. As the}^ flow they build up their mar- 
gins, which are thus made almost exactly level. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 41 

This gentle flow runs ofl* in wavy ripples gener- 
ally ; not in little rivulets, but in thin sheets, de- 
positing the solid matter they have held in solu- 
tion while below, which is freed by the action of 
the atmosphere. In this way the springs lift 
themselves, and build lofty hills. The deposit 
when fresh is hard, but when dry becomes gen- 
erally friable, though there are cases where it 
maintains great hardness. These deposits often 
times wear beautiful colors, and nearly always 
do so when being made or while under water. 
Some of the quiet pools are over 100 feet in di- 
ameter. The outer edges when shallow are of a 
deep brown, followed by a lighter brown or red, 
then blending into a yellow and followed by a 
yellow olive, and deepening as they sink into 
dark olive, while in the deep throats they are al- 
most black. The water before it makes the 
deepest point, in some is of emerald greenness, 
in others of exquisite blue ; along the steep slop- 
ing walls assuming a rich amethyst or tinted in 
exquisite sapphire. 

All deposits take either a wavy or a tufted 
form, whether on gentle slopes or on perpendic- 
ular walls. Some steep walls are not unlike 
slightly tufted fleeces of wool. The tufts are of 
all sizes, from that of an orange up to others as 
large as a bushel basket. One can scarcely 
realize that these tufts are hard. They appear 



42 A suminier's outing. 

beneath the water to be as light and soft as 
newly fallen snow upon an evergreen bush. 
Some of them are creamy white, others yellow, 
orange and all shades of brown. In one of the 
Geyser basins is a large pool actually used by 
the hotel people as a laundry tub. If you will 
promise not to mention it I will confess two evi- 
dences on my part of weakness. I always shed 
tears at the theatres, and I washed some hand- 
kerchiefs in this boiling pool and they came 
out nicel}^ white. 

nature's paint-pots. 

To many, the paint-pots at the " Lower 
Basin " are the most curious things seen in the 
park. Imagine somewhat rounded pits of all 
sizes from those a few inches in diameter to 
others of fort}^ and even sixty feet across, filled 
with fine white mud or mortar, such as plaster- 
ers call putty, and used by them for hard finish. 
This is boiling and plopping (I coin this word) 
like mush in huge pots, or thick soap in mighty 
caldrons. In boiling, the big bubbles lazily lift 
several inches high, and more lazily burst Vvath 
a muffled noise, and sputter dabs of thick paste 
several feet into the air. Falling upon the rim 
of the pool, these erect a wall — now smooth as a 
plastered wall — and then in rough grotesque 
finish. No mortar made up for a first-class plas- 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 43 

ter finish was ever tempered as is this natural 
paste. When dry and pulverized it is an almost 
impalpable powder. The paste is sometimes 
white, but more often is of a pale scotch gray. 
One large pool is half white or whitish grey, 
the other half of a delicate peach blow. In one 
pot the putty was a pretty pink salmon. Put- 
ting these three colors on a cardboard to dry, I 
found that much of the coloring disappeared 
after exposure to the atmosphere. x\t one basin 
between the Yellowstone canyon and the great 
Yellowstone Lake, the mortar is of dark mud, 
pure and simple, and is lifted many feet in the 
air, and falling, is sucked back into a monster 
throat with horrible gurgling sound. Go to a 
slaughter house to see a stuck pig breathing his 
last. Multiply his agonizing throes several hun- 
dred fold and a good idea can be had of the 
struggle of these hidden monsters. One of the 
mud ge^^sers is said at times to be so violent in 
its action, that the earth trembles for a very 
considerable distance, when the monster is in 
full eruption. Curiously there Avill sometimes 
be found a pool ofcrA^stal pure water boiling or 
spouting not many feet awa}^, and in one in- 
stance, close to a mud boiling pool is a large 
spring of pure cold water. One is tempted to 
wish to turn one of these into the mouth of the 
mud ge3'Ser to wash down its throat and ease its 



44 A summer's outing. 

agony. Neither the mud nor the white mortar in 
these craters overflow, but bubble, sputter, 
and plop year after year. The particles are as 
impalpable as the fine ground paint upon an 
artist's easel. 

All kinds of pools, geysers and paint-pots are 
heated more or less highly, all of them nearly 
up to, and some much above boiling point. The 
heating is not from the visible water being near 
to any fire or heated surface, but from super- 
heated steam, generated far below, being forced 
through the surface water. Sometimes only 
steam escapes through the surface orifices. 
These are called vents. The steam coming 
from some of these is so hot that the skin would 
be taken from the hand by a single instant- 
aneous application. They seem to be a sort of 
safety valves from the great steam generators in 
the bowels of the earth. No wonder the Indian 
gives this country a clear berth, or that a good 
schoolmarm tourist constantly had on her lips 
Hades! Hades!! Hades!!! To be candid, I 
think she used the old fashioned word. 



LETTER HI. 

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS. A WONDERFUL FOR- 
MATION. THE WHITE ELEPHANT. A THEORY 
ACCOUNTING FOR THE HOT SPRINGS AND 
GEYSERS. MUD GEYSERS. MARVELOUS COL- 
ORINGS OF SOME POOLS. 

The tourist entering the National Park by 
way of Livingston through the Gardner Canyon, 
and rocky Gateway, at about sixty miles reaches 
the "Mammoth Hot Springs". Here he sees a 
surprising formation. Before him rises in ter- 
races each from twenty to thirty feet high, a 
great white cataract looking mass, several hun- 
dred feet high, bulging out into the valley. The 
center projects with rounded contour far beyond 
the wings, which recede on either side, and to be 
seen must be skirted. The entire bent crest is 
not far from three miles in length. When first 
approached, it strikes the eye as a succession 
of water falls tumbling from terrace to ter- 
race. To a second glance it appears a system 
of falls one above the other hardened into 
dirty ice. To one who has visited lofty snow clad 
mountains, an act of deliberation is required to 
prevent him believing that the terraces are a 
part of a glacier of more or less purity. 

The crests of the different terraces are almost 
level — some of them apparently exactly so. They 
are built by water, and, water here levels as it 

45 



46 A summer's outing. 

builds, for if there be a depression it seeks it, 
and depositing the solid matter li eld in solution, 
levels it up with the rest. From the crest of the 
upper terrace runs back a plateau of silicious 
incrustation covering 300 to 400 acres. Scat- 
tered over this, are shallow pools of hot water of 
a bluish white tinge. About their shallow sides 
these pools have concentric, tinted borders, some 
a few inches wide, others of one or two feet. 
These are bent to conform to the irregular shape 
of the pools, one within the other, and are several 
deep. The borders differ from each other in 
color, being red, orange, yellow and brown and 
of intermediate shades. 

Near the front bulge of the upper terrace, lifts 
the principal spring or pool on its individual 
terrace, high above the main plateau. It looks 
like a turret when seen from below. Flowing in 
thin sheets over the margin, sometimes a simple 
ooze, the water from each pool makes a deposit 
as it spreads over the surrounding surface. At 
the foot and in front of the great precipice, stand 
two isolated slender pillars of ge3\serite, one of 
them about fort}^ feet high. Thc}^ are hollow 
and are the cones or nozzles of extinct geysers. 
One is called the 'Xibert}^ Cap" the other the 
"Devil's Thumb." They lift sheer up from the 
level in front of the great formation, and are a 
sort of sentinels keeping watch and ward over 



YFXLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 47 

the wonderful picture. A large part of the pre- 
cipitous projection of each terrace is moist from 
slowly trickling water. 

At the rear of the great plateau half hidden 
among scattered trees, is a long fissure in the 
solid rock foundation of the mountain slope. 
Through this has poured up hot water from 
below, building, as it flowed, a huge white forma- 
tion two to three hundred feet long, ten to fifteen 
feet high, and about as broad, rounded and 
smooth on its crest. This is supposed to resemble 
an elephant in recumbent position and has been 
aptly named ''The White Elephant." If one 
pauses to listen, he will hear a gurgling of run- 
ning water down in the leviathan's inside, not 
unlike that made when its living namesake 
pours a draught of Avater from his trunk down 
into his throat. Here, as everywhere else in 
active spring formations, the sound of running 
water can be heard beneath the surface incrus- 
tation. In some instances the ear must be bent 
down to catch a gentle rippling ; in others it 
deepens into a hoarse gurgle. 

The silicious crest of all of the plateaux 
on which a person w^alks, gives out so hollow 
a sound, that one is apt to feel somewhat 
anxious lest it break beneath his weight. I sus- 
pect, however, if it should do so, the bottom' 
would be found generally at only a few inches, 



48 A summer's outing. 

and a crimped shoe would be the most injurious 
result. Occasionally, however, the crest may' 
cover a deep pool, but not often. When a pool 
is very still a film of solid matter spreads over 
its margin as grease does over cool water. This 
attaches itself to the edge and spreads towards 
the center. Gentle ripples then overflow this but 
do not break it down, but thicken it b}^ further 
deposits. Sometimes one sees these edges pro- 
jecting well over a deep pool, and strong enough 
to bear up the weight of several men ; some of 
these may at some time be the cause of very 
scalding accidents. The principal danger, how- 
ever, to a moderatel}^ prudent tourist is to his 
shoe leather. One frequentl}^ steps into a little 
puddle after a geyser ceases to act, or walks into 
a thin sheet to see more closely the coloring of a 
pool. Either of such imprudences may cost a 
pair of good shoes. The safest course is to wear 
old ones for a ramble and to keep a good dr}^ 
pair at the hotel. , 

THEORIES ABOUT THE FORMATIONS. 

It may not be amiss to suggest some solution 
of the problems under which the silicious in- 
crustations are produced and the active ge3^sers 
act. 

The entire Yellowstone Park is an elevated 
plateau thrown up by volcanic eruption, or more 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 49 

probably was left when the plains sank beneath 
the ocean, leaving the crnmpled back bone of 
the continent pushed far above. The rock}^ ribs 
of earth were pitched here into a more or less 
vertical position, leaving seams and fissures run- 
ning deep down into the bowels of the earth in 
the neighborhood of intense internal fires. Vol- 
canic forces have left their marks throughout 
the Park. The hot springs and ge3^sers are 
their feeble remnants. 

On the mountain heights, melting snows and 
rains fill great lakes and copious flowing rivers. 
These send veins more or less large, or percolate 
down into the earth crust, suppl3ang theintensel}^ 
heated rocks with moisture for a vast volume of 
super-heated steam. The steam seeks an outlet 
through fissures made in the plutonic rocks b}^ 
volcanic forces and through seams in the upper 
crumpled and pitched stratified formations. Pass- 
ing through these latter this intensively heated 
steam erodes the softer rocks into throats, re- 
cesses and pockets, and taking up minerals in 
chemicals solution bears them upward, meeting 
the cooler crust and mingling with percolations 
from melting snows and rains, it becomes more 
or less condensed and pours out in small springs. 
These as they flow, deposit the silicious and 
other mineral matter held in solution, building 
up the lower side of the spring, until the rim is 



50 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

level. Thus the spring becomes a more or less 
rounded pool. 

The over flow now becomes very gentle 
and even over the entire rim. The atmos- 
phere reaches the whole of the overflow as 
it spreads over the surface of the ground and 
causes rapid precipitation. The constant out- 
pour causes a constant lifting of the pool and of 
the incrustations about it. This spreading crust 
is in laminae or thin sheets. As the pool rim 
lifts, the weight of the column of water forces 
some of it between the sheets and carries it hot 
and rich in mineral and earthy solid matter to 
the outer edges of the formation, where it escapes 
to spread the incrustation wider and wider. 
The streams beneath the crust gradually wear 
away their channels leaving open spaces above 
them, which give out a hollow sound when one 
walks over them, and in them the rippling or 
gurgling of flDwing w^ater is to be heard more or 
less, beneath the crust. 

When such underflowing streams cut a 
large enough channel, they frequently build 
up new small pools more or less removed 
from the parent spring. In other words one 
vein of hot water coming from below may 
be the source of several pools. Yet there 
are many only a few yards apart, which have 
sources far removed from each other, or at least 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 5I 

the Steam which supplies them with their heat 
and solid matter in solution, has passed through 
widely different and distant rock formations. 
This is shown by the different and distinct min- 
erals which color the water and the formations 
deposited by them. 

The water in one pool will be compara- 
tively pure, while close by, is that of an- 
other strongly impregnated with sulphur, depos- 
iting great tufts in yellow and brown, and still 
another with red borders and olive throat full of 
oxide of iron. Here will be a pool beautifully 
green, with exquisitely tinted formations, prov- 
ing that copper or arsenic are held in solution ; 
and then within a half stone's throw is still an- 
other of intense cerulean blue and a third of 
most delicate sapphire. 

In one of the paint pots, in the "Lower basin" 
not over forty feet in diameter, about half of the 
putty is pearl gray, while the other half is a 
rich peach blow. I said that the overflow of the 
pools was generally small. I recall several small 
ones and a few fully thirty or more feet in dia- 
meter, from which the overflow in a calm day 
was almost uniform from the entire veins, and 
nowhere thicker than a very thin sheet of glass. 
And in some instances the out put was so thin as 
to be a simple ooze. And yet in many of such 
pools the boiling action in the centre was great 



52 A summer's outing. 

enough to lift bubbles and turbulations many 
incbes high. In one pool called the "Spouter" 
there are constant large jets lifting from a few 
inches up to three or more feet, a wild fearful 
boiling and still only a small stream ran from it. 
And still others which boiled furiousl}^ but had no 
outflow at all. It is not improbable that from 
these latter there are water exists below the 
crusts, which have been lifted up as rims or pool 
margins. The bubbles and turbulations are not 
strictly speaking from boiling hot water, but 
from steam rushing up and striving to escape. 

MARVELOUS COLORINGS. 

No ordinar}^ stretch of imagination will enable 
one who has not seen them to realize the variety 
and exquisiteness of the tints and colorings of 
many of the pools. The caves of Capri near 
Naples, furnish not a more wondrous blue, and 
the grottoes of tropical seas do not afford such 
variet3\ The tints are parti 3^ derived from the 
minerals held in solution b}^ the water, but are 
probably owing more to the reflected tones of the 
ge3^serite formation surroundiug the throats, 
walls and margins. 

One can easily understand the solution of 
the problem resulting in the formation and 
actions of the pools, and of the building of 
the encrustations of the plateaux, which 



YFXLOAVSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 53 

extend over hundreds of acres. But the actions 
of gQ-ysers are so weird and strange that 
science has probabl}^ not fully explained them. 
I confess m\^self too much of a t3^ro to fully 
comprehend the more scientific elucidation, 
which explains the action on chemical prin- 
ciples. I can, however, comprehend the more 
practical but possibl}^ less scientific theory, 
which is sufQcient for me and will probabl}^ also 
be so for the majority of my readers. The pools 
and hot springs are formed at all elevations in 
the valleys and on mountain slopes. 

THEORIES AS TO GEYSER ACTION. 

The Ge3'Sers are always in the valleys and 
generally contiguous to the lowest points. When 
lifted up they are probably so raised by their 
own energies as builders. 

On the following page is a cut showing a sec- 
tion of the earth crust, running across a valley 
and up the mountain side. Along its lowest 
point flows rapidly a stream of cold clear water 
fed b}^ melting snows and dews on mountains 
towering above and more or less distant. 

"6^" is a geyser cone. Below is the geyser 
throat or well sinking down to " IV^\ 

"^" is a shaft more or less vertical opening 
into the geyser well and running far down into 
the softer rocks to "C" a somewhat horizontal 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 55 

continuation leading into "7?" a recess or pocket 
in the softer upper rocks of sufficient capacity 
in some cases to hold hundreds or thousands of 
tons of water. 

"/^" is another recess opening into "i^" near 
its apex. These recesses or pockets have been 
scooped out by superheated steam pouring up 
from far below through plutonic rocks contiguous 
to living central fires. Such steam is generated 
from veins and percolations of water always 
sinking from the earth's surface and from 
moisture believed to exist in or about all rocks. 

"Z)" "Z^" and "/9" are reservoirs on the sur- 
face of the earth or beneath it high up on the 
mountains, perennially supplied by rains and- 
melting snows. 

" F" '^ F" " F" are veins through which water 
flows from reservoirs "/^" "Z^" "Z^" into recess 
"Z?" at "X". These veins are also fed by per- 
colations throughout the formations through 
which they run. "/^" "7^" are fissures or seams 
in the upper rocks running into and extending 
deep down in the primative or igneus rocks 
below, along which highly heated steam gen- 
erated near the internal fires underlying earth's 
solid crust, rushes upward into recess or pocket 
''Z". We will assume that there are no veins 
conveying cold water into this latter recess or 
pocket. 



56 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

Now we assume also that at a given moment 
recesses "7?" and '' P'' and shaft ''5" and its 
continuation " C are free or nearly free of water. 
Steam, however, is rushing from theui and out 
of geyser "6^" in hot, roaring volume. In recess 
"A"' it is encountering cold water flowing .in at 
"X" and rapidly loses its high temperature and 
is being condensed. As such condensation goes 
on, the horizontal continuation ^'(T" is being 
filled. As it fills the escape of steam at "6^" les- 
sens rapidly, until continuation ''C becoming 
full of water, it ceases entirely or only a small 
amount lifts lazily up from the hot shaft "►S". 
The inflow at "A^" and condensation fills recess 
"7?" with water more or less cool. The steam 
coming up through "/^", "/^" no longer having 
an escape, heats the water in ''7?" until it reaches 
a line ^'Z" in recess "i?," where it becomes 
so hot as no longer to condense steam or does it 
to a very small extent. The pressure of the 
high heated steam now stops a further inflow at 
"A"" and forces the water upward into shaft "5" 
and is capable of sustaining the column at the 
geyser throat ''Jf^" and the column in veins 
"F" at a like height. Condensation having 
ceased the steam in "7?" above "Z" and in '' F' 
becomes superheated and acquires enormous ex- 
pansive power. Finally its energy is so vast 
that a sudden expansion or explosion takes 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 57 

place. The water at "Z" is pressed enormously 
downward and the contents of recess "^" are 
forced upward through shaft "5" into the geyser 
well and then through the contracted nozzle at 
^'6^" in a mighty jet high into the open air. The 
action of suddenly expanded or exploded steam 
is spasmodic and immediate. All of the water in 
recess "/?"is therefore rapidly thrown out at "6^". 
The water gone, fearfully hot steam follows it 
through "6^" until its spasmodic energy ceases 
almost if not quite as suddenly as it was at first 
aroused. Immediately the steam, now coming 
from recess "i?" begins to go through the cooling 
process before described, until again the shaft is 
closed at "C" and again a repetition of the erup- 
tion is brought about. 

This series of actions is more or less regular in 
all geysers. In old "Faithful" the round is com- 
pleted in about sixty-three minutes. The recesses 
or pockets are of various sizes in different geysers 
requiring different periods of time to be filled. 
The time taken to empty them, and in some meas- 
ure the height of the jets depend probably very 
largely upon the size of the throat and of the noz- 
zle of thegeysers. ''Old Faithful" has a compara- 
tively small nozzle. His jet continues for several 
minutes and mounts to a great height. The 
same is true of the "Splendid." The Castle 
spurts up a very much larger volume of water ; 



58 A summer's outing. 

but not nearl}^ so high, from a huge throat and 
in very much less time. The ''Excelsior" has a 
throat many feet in diameter, and ejects a 
column proportionately large. Its actions are 
not regular and indeed it is rather a water vol- 
cano than a geyser, throwing up large stones 
and gravel. 

"Young Faithful" emits no steam. It is 
probably only a sort of adjunct of some of the 
violently boiling pools near b}^ Steam, which 
in some of these cause violent turbulations 
at regular intervals, forces water through 
lateral shafts up through this little gem. Its 
throat is very small. A considerable body of 
water passing from behind with only a moderate 
force, 3^et finding only the small throat, makes 
a jet of considerable height. Jets resembling it 
are frequently seen on low rocky cliffs on the 
sea shore, caused b}'^ the ocean swell passing into 
grottoes and caverns and forcing water up along 
small fissures through the overhanging rock, 
called "puffing holes". The foregoing theory 
of geyser action may not bear the test of close 
criticism, but it is probable that such criticism 
may be answered by h3^potheses not here alluded 
to. At all events it may be sufi&cientl}^ satisfac- 
tory for the ordinary mind. 



LETTER IV. 

how to do the park. hotels and vehicles, 
my innocents. charming scenery. nat- 
ural meadows. wild animals. beauti- 
ful flowers. debts to the devil. camp 
life and fishing. wonderful canyon, 
painted rocks. glorious waterfalls, 
nature grotesque and beautiful. 

Grand Canyon, 
Yellowstone National Park, July 24, 1890. 

I will say at the beginning of this letter, a 
few words as to how the Park's wonders can be 
seen. There are associations under leases from 
the Government and supposed to be under its 
control, which regulate the movements of reg- 
ular tourists, in and through the park ; one for 
transportation alorfe, and the other for feeding 
and housing. 

The latter has five hotels, two of them com- 
pleted — two others sufficientl}^ so to house their 
guests. The completed houses are, one at 
"Mammoth Hot Springs," the other at '' Grand 
Canyon." These are fairly appointed hotels 
and each is capable of nicely accommodating 
several hundred guests. Aside from these there 
are two where a tourist can live in comfort, pro- 
vided he be not over fastidious. The largest and 
best hotel is at '' Mammoth Hot Springs," at an 

59 



6o A SUMMER^S OUTING. 

elevation of 6,200 feet. The next best and 
next largest one is at " Grand Can3^on," 7,500 
feet up. Several other hotels are partially finished. 
The transportation company has some sev- 
ent}^ five vehicles, two-thirds, if not three-fourths 
of them Concord stages and wagonettes car- 
r^ang six to seven passengers, but capable of 
carrying three or four more by placing three on 
a seat ; the other vehicles are four-passenger sur- 
re3^s. The coaches and wagonettes each have 
four horses, the surre3'S two. The tourist pur- 
chases tickets for the round trip. Fort^'^ dollars 
carries one from Livingston on the railroad to 
Mammoth Hot Springs and then around the 
park, occupying five and a quarter days. This 
includes hotel expenses. One thus sees ever}'- 
thing in the grand tour, but somewhat hur- 
riedl}^ However, quite a number stop over at 
the " Upper Ge^^ser Basin " and at " Grand Can- 
3^on;'' the stop-overs thus making room for those 
who had halted the day before. There are at 
this time tourists enough to start out each da3^ 
from Mammoth Hot Springs about five coaches 
and several surre3^s all leaving at a fixed hour 
and reaching points of interests or other hotels 
close together, each vehicle maintaining its po- 
sition in the line throughout the tour. Thus 
racing is prevented. A great mistake is made 
in keeping the vehicles in line too close together. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 6 1 

For at times the dust on some of the roads is 
very deep, causing passengers in some of the 
vehicles to be choked and rendered ver}^ un- 
comfortable. It rains frequently throughout 
the park ; but for this the tour would be almost 
unbearable. Our part}^ was in this respect very 
fortunate 

The management very foolishly discour- 
ages individual stop-overs, but suggests a 
stage or surre}^ party to hold over the vehicle. 
This is expensive and parties are not always of 
one mind. I stopped and now stop over, taking 
my chances for a vacanc}^ in a coach. This 
should be encouraged b}^ the management, for a 
person can spend several days of pleasure and 
instruction at two, three or more points. 

" Grand Can^'On " from which this letter is 
started, would make a charming resort for parties 
forda3^s,orevenweeks,andtwo or three days should 
be taken to stud}^ the "Upper Geyser Basin." But 
the entire management is yet in an embryo 
state, and too great an endeavor is made to make 
both ends meet, wnth a profitable balance at the 
end of the season. Some travelers complain bit- 
terly of the accommodations furnished at the 
hotels. They are, however, I suspect, of those 
who expect the comforts of home, or the luxuries 
of first-class cit}^ hotels where ever they go. 
Those who are prepared to make the most of 



62 A summer's outing. 

life, and to pick up pleasure wherever to be 
found, can spend several weeks in the Park, 
without loss of flesh and with instruction regard- 
ing the sports and freaks of nature to be found 
no where else. The wonders are unique and 
the marvels unequaled elsewhere in the world. 

Some tourists are so unfortunate as to arrive 
at the park when very large excursion parties 
from the East make their entr3^ Then the 
hotels become necessarily crowded. No prudent 
provision can make preparation for an extra 
hundred pouring in on top of the regular travel. 
At such times one is compelled to take a bed in 
a room with several others and may even be 
forced to crowd two in a bed. That happened 
once to our ^:ivty. But none of the travelers 
had the small pox or itch, so no great harm re- 
sulted. By hugging the outer rail of a bed, in- 
stead of the bed fellow, the necessity of tumbling 
two in a bed is not altogether a catastrophe. 

Besides those who make the regular tours, there 
are many who hire carriages and wagons at Cin- 
nabar for a leisurely excursion, which ma}^ be 
longer or shorter to suit disposable time and the 
fullness of purses. Parties too, besides hiring 
carriages and horses, frequently take tents and 
enjoy a regular roughing life. We encountered 
many of these. Some were of a man and his 
family, others of two or three young men, and 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 63 

Still others of men and ladies by the dozen or 
two, and in one instance thirty or forty were in 
the party. The large parties have a number of 
attendants who generally go ahead to prepare 
the camps for the night, while the tourists loiter 
along the way to inspect the marvels or to bota- 
nize. The small parties we saw, pitched their 
tents when practicable, near a trout stream, sev- 
eral of which furnished fine sport. Throughout 
the Park we noticed that at and about localities 
usually chosen for camping ground, warnings 
were nailed upon the trees, " Put out the fires." 
Destructive forest fires have resulted from care- 
lessness of campers. Soldiers in pairs ride along 
Several of the roads daily to see that these regu- 
lations are observed, and to prevent injurious 
results from non-observance. Twice we saw 
blue coats extinguishing smouldering fires left 
by reckless people. 

My personal stage part}^ up to this point, has 
been my daughter and some intelligent school- 
marms from New York, one of them, however, 
resenting the appellation of " schoolmarm." She 
is 2^ principal. Woman-like, they seemed glad 
when I assumed command of the party. Queer, 
how even the brightest and most independent 
woman takes to a sort of master. Show me one 
who will not submit to the yoke, and ten to one 
she is one few men desire to boss. I call my 



64 A summer's outing. 

party, " my Innocents," and all move with alac- 
rity when I cry out, " Come girls !" 

Between us, it has been several years since the 
youngest of them wore short dresses. I mean 
this in good part, for girls just getting into long 
skirts are very like the rinsing fluid into which 
the wash-woman dips her clean laundry, and 
called " blue water " — rather thin ! 

All my Innocents are good, but can stand a 
straight shot in sensible English. One quotes 
with a sigh the remark of a friend, who when in 
the park^ had but one word- — the word translated 
"sheol" in the revised version. Quotation marks 
are convenient when one wishes to say some- 
thing a little naughty. The Rev. Thomas 
Beecher, who is one of our daily part}^, but not 
in our coach, and who by the way is something 
of a wag, and is not averse to having a learned 
theological discussion with one who, like him- 
self, was intended for an Evangelist, speaking of 
the huge amount of solid matter brought here 
above ground, declares he must look up Bob 
Ingersoll to tell him the Devil is making some 
mighty big hol^s down below. For my part if 
the Devil is doing all this, I shall begin to 
cultivate high respect for him as an artist, and 
would only ask him not to let the bottom drop 
out until my friends to the third and fourth 
generation may come and see. After them it 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 65 

matters not. Let the deluge come. It is evident 
from the names given to many points about the 
park that the Devil's friends have done much of 
the christening in this region. 

Now, having to some extent touched upon the 
marvelous antics of Nature in Uncle Sam's 
domain, I will say something of those things 
nearly as interesting, and which make this tour 
charming as a simple road excursion. The park 
is full of beauties. The drives are often through 
delightful pine forests. The trees are small, but 
straight as arrows, tall and lading the air with 
delicious perfumes. Many hundred, or rather 
hundreds of thousands of acres are dead : Some 
from forest fires, but in many cases apparently 
from a species of blight, possibly from a failure 
of nourishment in the thin soil on the mountain 
slopes for the trees after they have attained any 
size. Tracks of fierce mountain storms are fre- 
quently seen ; miles upon miles of forests are 
thrown down, the trees all lying in one direction, 
showing that the devastation was done by 
straight running winds, and not by tornadoes. 

There are noble mountains constantly towering 
above us, although we are ourselves sometimes 
nearly nine thousand feet above the sea, and 
never after leaving Mammoth Hot Springs, 
under 7000. Many of the mountains have bands 
of snow stretching far below their pinnacles, and 



66 A summer's outing. 

some of them are properly entitled, snow-capped. 
The mountains and slopes are fairly well treed ; 
and the small plains or plateaux show beautiful 
downs bordered with forest and cut by copses. 
These downs are green and so smooth in the 
distance that it is dif&cult to realize that man 
has had nothing to do with laying them out. 
Several level valleys are very pretty and when 
seen from eminences remind one of valleys over 
which people go into ecstasies in foreign lands. 
If there were here a church spire, and there a 
mill and a sprinkling of hamlets, they would be 
as happy valleys as the vaunted ones abroad. 

The utter absence of habitations on the long 
drives is a striking peculiarity. The roads being 
tolerably good and entirely artificial, makes one 
expect to see hamlets, and he involuntarily finds 
himself looking for a farm house, when the coach 
emerges from a forest, and comes upon a broad 
stretch of clean looking well grassed native 
meadow land. A turn of a mountain spur along 
a crystal stream, which has deepened into a pool, 
suggests a mill-pond, and that a water wheel 
will soon come into view. A grassy plain all 
sun-lighted causes one to look for a herd of cattle 
lazily lying in a wooded copse on its margin. 
But no habitation othei than the regular hotels, 
are to be found within the wonderland. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 67 

The park is comparatively a free and safe 
home for many varieties of wild animals. Guns 
and pistols are forb'l^en, except to the soldiers 
and to the scouts who are a sort of a police corps, 
whose duty is to see that trespassers do not enter 
upon the Government preserve. Elk, deer, 
mountain sheep, bear black and cinnamon, buf- 
falo and other animals indigenous to the Rocky 
mountains, range freely over the hills without 
molestation ; and beaver build their dams close 
by the hotels. How many buffalo are yet 
denizens of the park, I could not definitely learn, 
but was told that there are from fifty to a hun- 
dred. Squirrels and chipmunks are very numerous 
in several varieties, and very gentle. The bear 
are becoming too numerous for the safety of such 
animals as they prey upon. On this account the 
scouts are destroying many of them. 

I said there are no domestic animals, except 
a few about the hotels. The result is, the 
grasses are fine and the flowers in great pro- 
fusion and very beautiful — patches of larkspur 
as blue as indigo, acres of lupin of various 
tints, generally blue and lilac with eyes of 
white ; gentians so rich and purple that one 
feels that they have been dipped in Tyrian 
dyes ; sunflowers and buttercups, making acres 
look as if they had been sprinkled with gold ; 
and many other beautiful flowers, whose names 



68 A summer's outing. 

I know not. But one tliistle I must not forget 
to mention. It is short and heav}^ from the 
ground, not unlike the edible thistle of Japan, 
with leaves and stalks of flesh colored pink, 
bleached into a sort of mixture of white, green 
and rose, with clustered flowers in compact head 
of exquisite rose and pink. It is a rarely beau- 
tiful flower. One flower of delicate lavender, 
thickly strewn along branching spikes, was 
wholly unknown to all of our party and is 
acknowledged of great beaut}^ Its leaf and 
small flowers lead me to think it a wild holly- 
hock. 

STUPENDOUS SOUNDS OF FALLING FLOODS. 

As I sit at my window the roar of the glorious 
Yellowstone falls filling my ear, I look out across 
the deep river canyon, to an upper plateau of 
several thousands of acres of beautiful meadow, 
some miles awa}^, with here and there a copse of 
young pines, and all fringed by rich forest, and 
feel I should see a herd of fallow deer wandering 
over some ancient, lordly park. It is true that 
my glass shows that much of the velvety softness 
of the down is from green sagebush, which is so 
softened down by the distance that from here it 
resembles well cut grass. It is very beautiful. 

Guide books tell us not to drink the water. I 
think their writers were in collusion with the 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 69 

hotel management to force guests to buy lager 
and apollinaris at 50 cents a bottle. By the way, 
there is on the first days drive an apollinaris 
spring. It seems to me the simon pure thing. 
We drank freel}^ of it at the spring and after- 
wards from bottles carried for several hours. One 
of the bottles was tightl}^ corked, and, when 
opened, popped as if well charged. At another 
spring — a little thing immediatel}^ on the edge 
of the road on the Beaver river and in the cool 
and beautiful Beaver canyon, we had soda water 
flavoured with lime juice. At least, it reminded 
me ver}^ distinctly of soda water with which the 
juice of the lime had been mingled in Ceylon. 
The bar-tenders in the "Flowery Isle" call it 
"lemon squoze." It was our favorite beverage 
in hot Colombo. Both of these springs are small, 
but from them could be bottled many cases a 
day. A gentleman in the party Avho has drank 
only Apollinaris since he came into the Park, 
tasted from my bottle and declared it quite equal 
to the pure stuff. Feeling the need of an altera- 
tive, I twice drank several glasses from a hot 
spring with decided benefits ; and have partaken 
freely throughout the tour of the springs (except 
those whose brilliant green showed them largely 
impregnated with arsenic or copper,) and with 
no perceptible injurious effects. The hotel people 
are inclined to disparage the waters of the springs 



70 A summer's outing. 

generall}^, and discourage their use, thereb}^ and 
possibly for that purpose, largel}- increasing the 
consumption of lager and bottled waters, which 
sell at fift}^ cents a bottle. The enormous 
number of empt}^ bottles along the road sides and 
at the hotels testify to the thirst and timidity of 
the traveling public. The coach drivers call the 
empty bottles along the road "dead soldiers." 
The "peg" /'. e. whisk}^ soda is the bane of the 
European in India. The disposition to make 
"dead soldiers" in the National Park very pro- 
bably does more harm to the tourist than the 
native waters would if judicious!}^ used. 

When the government does its dut}^ — makes 
abundant roads and bridges about its marvelous 
domain here, and anal^^zes thoroughl}^ its hot 
springs — I doubt not there will be found man}^ 
of them of great h3^gienic value, and sanitariums 
will be established to make the park a blessing 
to the afflicted of the country. 

One good housewife whom I met frequentl}^ at 
the different halting-places, sighed deeply at the 
enormous waste of hot water, declaring there 
was enough here to latmdr}^ all America, and to 
wash the poor of all our big cities. The good 
people tell us everything was made for man. I 
doubt it. He is not worth the good things lavished 
upon him. He is a part of the mighty plan and 
will be followed after the next cataclysm by 



YELLOA^'STOXE NATIONAL PARK. 7 1 

beings as much above him as he is above the 
chimpanzee. But if the good people be correct, 
Congress ought to take immediate steps to enable 
the people more fully to utilize the mighty 
H3^gea located within the bounds of this park. 

Surrounded b}^ bare and bleak mountains and 
hot and arid plains, here at this elevation rains 
are abundant, and dews are suf&cient; trees clothe 
mountain top and slope ; grass is green and fat- 
tening, and flowers deck the open downs and 
shade the forest land. And 3'et the air is dr}^ 
and beneficial to all except those Avhose lungs 
require an atmosphere less light. AVe have seen 
several consumptives who have come here for 
their health. The rarified atmosphere makes 
their breathing ver}^ laborious and painful. Pos- 
bly in the early stages of the disease, benefits 
ma}' be derived from a sojourn here, but in its 
later stages, the poor victims suft'"er fearfull3\ 
The majority of those wdiom we have seen here 
for health, are camping out and seem to be 
having a good time. The\' have their horses, 
and spend their time fishing and riding. 

On the road from the lower Ge^'ser basin to 
Grand Can^^on we halted at a little rivulet to 
water our stock. The stream cut its Ava}' deep 
down in a grass}' plain, and was so narrow that 
one could easih' jump over it, A small camp- 
ing party had just pitched its tents close by. 



72 A summer's outing. 

While the tent lines were being stretched, the 
gentleman of the party came to the rivnlet near 
ns to angle for his supper. He cast his fly a 
few times, when there was a "rise" to it not 
twenty feet from our coach, and a two pound 
beauty, speckled and plump was landed. I en- 
vied the camper. 

In some localities in the Yellowstone, and es- 
pecially in and about the great lake, parasites so 
infest the fish as to unfit them for the table. 
The infected fish, however, are easily known and 
may be discarded, while the good are retained. 
A gentleman who has fished throughout the 
park informed me, that as a rule, the fish were 
good. Like the trout in all the Rocky moun- 
tains and Pacific regions, the fish caught here 
lack the delicate flavour of the brook trout taken 
in the Adirondacks and throughout the New 
England States. 

We regret we could not visit the Great Yellow- 
stone Lake. The hotels there being unfinished, 
the regular stage route does not yet take it in. 
It is at an altitude of 7700 feet, and is over 
twenty miles long from the North-west to the 
South-east and fifteen from North-east to South- 
w^est, covering an area of 150 or more square 
miles . It is very irregular in its form and said 
to be a beautiful sheet. Excepting the lake in 
the Andes it is much the largest lake in the 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 73 

world at so great elevation. A large hotel is 
being erected on its margin. When finished it 
^vill make a ver}- attractive addition to the Park 
tour, and will furnish a stop over for da3^s or 
weeks to those who have time at their command. 

One is surprised to find how quickly he be- 
comes fatigued by a short climb, until his lungs 
become accustomed to the rare medium he is 
taking in. One old man, I need not name, 
stepped jauntil}^ b}' the side of a prett}' school- 
marm and swore he was 32, but the climb of a 
mile made him, with blushes which tinged the 
cuticle of his bald head, acknowledge he was 
past 65. He was somewhat relieved, when he 
saw how the sweet innocent was panting at his 
side. 

There is here what I am told exists nowhere 
else in the vrorld — a mountain of glass — vol- 
canic obsidian — monster masses resembling the 
molten opaque blocks left by the Chicago great 
fire in the ruins of a glass vrarehouse. We 
drove along a road of shivered glass. The en- 
gineers built fires over great obsidian bovdders, 
and then threw cold water from the stream close 
by over the heated mass, breaking it into glass 
gravel. Chipmunks of several varieties, gray 
pine squirrels, hop about barking within a few 
feet of one ; robins are almost as gentle as spar- 
rows, and bears come down near to one of the 



74 A summer's outing. 

hotels niglitl}^ to be fed for the amusement of 
the tourists. Beavers have their dams close b}^ 
our hotel and can at dusk be seen swimming 
about and feeding. A small herd of buffalos, 
since we have been here, rushed across the road 
just in front of an excursion party, giving the 
stage horses a fright and nearl}^ creating a 
panic. No gun is allowed in the park, except 
to the military and scouts, and no one can kill 
an animal, except when driven to it for want of 
necessary food. Two companies of soldiers 
patrol the regular routes to enforce the regula- 
tions and to serve as voluntary guides for the 
ladies of the dail}^ parties. They forbid the 
smallest specimen to be carried off. I had even 
to hide the little dabs of mud I took from a 
paint-pot. Uncle Sam is cultivating good nature 
among men and beasts within this, his unique 
domain. Even the devil may grow good-na- 
tured, and may cut up his didos and antics after 
a w^hile only for the people's amusement. 

THE CLIMAX OF GRANDEUR AND BEAUTY. 

Having told 3-0U of the freaks and sports of 
nature which make the more striking marvels 
of this wonderland ; and having spoken of the 
softer and sweeter characteristics of the Park, I 
now come to what the majority of the travelers 
consider its gem. 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 75 

A Soudanese wise man is said to have swal- 
lowed the tale of Jonah and the whale without 
making a wry face, but grew fighting mad when 
asked to believe the story of snow and ice in 
northern lands. The genii might easil}^ send 
a man through a whale's bell}^, but Allah him- 
telf could not make water hard and dr3\ So it is 
easy to tell of the monstrosities of the park, and 
hope for credence. They are simply montrosi- 
ties — the work of demoniac power, and are cred- 
ible. But who can make another believe that 
huge precipices, one and two thousand feet high, 
have been painted with all the colors of the set- 
ting sun ; that the rainbow has settled upon 
miles of rocks and left its sweet tints upon their 
rugged sides? And yet this and these are true 
of the Yellowstone can3^on. 

We approached it from the South on a road run- 
.ning near the river. On a prett}^ grassy bank we 
rode along the stream, here over a hundred yards 
wide, rolling swiftly 3^et smoothly along in green 
depths, preparing to make its two plunges into the 
chasm below. Swift and swifter it hurried on- 
ward in quickened dignity. Presently the rock 
walls on either side grew contracted to a hun- 
dred or so feet, and then the green stream rushed 
in smooth slope to a gatewa}^ of eighty feet in 
width, through which, with parabolic swoop, it 
leaps 112 feet with such depth on its brink, that 



76 A summer's outing. 

the deep-emerald green is not lost till it strikes 
a ledge at the bottom, where a large part of the 
falling sheet is shot off at an angle into the air, 
half as high up as the fall itself. The two sides 
of the river at the brink of the fall rush against 
precipitous walls and are bent and curled up- 
wards into a veil six or eight feet high over the 
green center — a veil of countless millions of 
crystal drops — over the main stream of emerald 
more than half hidden in a mighty shower of 
diamonds. Standing immediately on the edge, 
one can imagine how Niagara's Horseshoe would 
look if one could get within a few feet of it. 
This fall is not very lofty nor wide, but is one of 
the most beautiful in the world. The river after the 
first fall rushes in foamy swirl a half mile further, 
between cliffs which on either side lift 1,500 feet 
high, and growing higher and higher, and then 
with one wild leap plunges 300 feet into the rocky 
gorge below. 

As it drops the emerald and the diamond 
struggle for supremacy, but the brighter crystal 
gains the ascendency before all is lost in the 
lace-like mist which envelopes the depths. The 
whole when seen from a little distance looks as 
light as a gem-decked veil of lace, but so vast is 
the body of the water which makes the leap, and 
so great the fall, that to one standing a mile 
away, with a point of land intervening between 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. ^^ 

him and the fall, shutting off the noise of the 
splashing water, there comes a deep and mellow 
bass, richer than any I ever heard before 
made by a water fall. It is not an angry tone 
like Niagara's roar, but is as deep and mellow as 
distaut rolling thunder when heard in a moun- 
tain gorge. 

These falls are beautiful in the extreme, but 
the beholder soon forgets them in wonder of 
the canyon which bends between the towering 
cliffs for four miles. Far under him, at least 
1500 feet down, the river leaps and tears, now in 
green, and then in snowy foam, between pre. 
cipices at whose feet no human foot ever did or 
can safely tread. The rocks lift on either side 
in mighty buttresses like giant cathedral walls. 
Standing out before the walls are towers and 
pointed spires of most artistic form, all painted 
in exquisite tints. The upper walls are of 
yellow and orange hue, with here and there 
towers and bulwarks of chalky white or of black 
lava over which is a film of Venetian red. The 
upper yellow walls, sink and contract between 
the lifting buttresses, which at their base are of 
lava black, running first into dark umber, and 
then into chocolate bordered with black and 
stained with red, often so bright as to be Vermil- 
lion. In some places the main walls are broken 
down, where some long-ago slide has carried 



"jS A summer's outing. 

their steepness into the river below, but with 
slopes far too steep for human tread. Some of 
these slopes are orange and yellow as if coated 
with sulphur; others are painted in vertical bands 
of brown and red, with between them narrow 
stripes of pearl gray and yellow, and of orange 
stretching for hundreds of feet, and at one 
point for a half mile in extent ; one of these 
slopes look as if a banner with these several 
colors, had been spread over it, and then being 
removed, the colors of the drapery had been 
left upon the soft velvety rock. The buttresses 
and spires lift now fifteen to a hundred feet apart, 
and then they are spread so that the golden w^all 
between shows 150 to 200 feet. All of the colors 
except the yellow seem to be in and of the rock. 
The yellow looks as if made by blowing thous- 
ands of tons of flowers of sulphur upon the walls, 
the flowers having clung when the wall had some 
incline, but having dropped off from the vertical 
rock. 

These painted rocks extend along the canyon 
for about four miles ; then the gorge grows more 
somber and dark, and so continues some twenty 
miles. This lower part seems to be of a harder 
rock. It was cut through myriads of ages ago 
and has grown darkly gray, while the painted 
part is of a much later period and is of soft rocks 
— so soft that they seem to be composed of 



YELLOWSTONK NATIONAL PARK. 79 

somewhat indurated volcanic ash, sulphur being 
the predominating mass. The red coloring is from 
oxide of iron. These blending together make 
other tints. Burnt Umber, often deepened into 
a rich chocolate is the dominating one. The 
buttresses are of a harder yet still a rather soft 
lava, of a yellowish brown tint near the summits, 
red and brown below, and finally towards their 
bases almost black. Sometimes there are slopes 
of white lime and several towers, nearly 2, coo 
feet high sheer up from the river, are so white 
that one could think them chalk. Half way down 
the heights are great points, like the sharpened 
spires of a cathedral, colored as if a mighty pot 
of Venetian red had been empted over them and 
had run in streaks down the rocky sides. Had 
an artist tried to sell me a picture of these cliffs, 
before I had seen them, in no way exaggerated 
in coloring, I would have called him a fraud, 
and would have thought he had taken me for a 
fool. I have seen now and then pictures which 
I considered daubs, which I now know did not in 
the least overdo Nature in its freak of rock-paint- 
ing. I quit the park glad that I came, but feel 
that the rush andlabor of going through it would 
hardly repay a second hasty visit, at least for 
several years. Yet I can recall no excursion of 
the same length in any part of the world half 
so full of surprises. Could we have made it 



8o A summer's outing. 

leisureh', our enjo3'ment would have been 
greatly enhanced. We have met some tour- 
ists who think the labor and anno3^ance of 
the thing over-balance the profit and pleasure. 
Burns says " Alan was made to mourn." In ni}^ 
wear}^ round, I have frequentl}^ been convinced 
that about half of the travelers of the world were 
made to growl, or at least half think the}^ fail to 
show their "raisin" unless the}^ do growl. 

Equanimity of temper is the most valuable of 
all human characteristics for happiness. It is 
absolutely necessary to the traveler, who desires 
to learn much, and to enjo}^ what he sees. A 
plain traveling suit on one's back, a resolution 
to make the most of ever}^ thing in one's mind, 
and the least possible luggage to carr}^ are the 
three indispensables for a good traveler. The 
park people nla}^ not do all they should for the 
public ; indeed, I fear they have mau}^ short-com- 
ings, but I for one, am ver}^ glad the}^ are here, 
and that the}- do as much as the}^ do. 

The hotels at Mammoth Hot Springs and at 
Yellowstone canyon are large, each capable of 
housing two or three hundred guests. The beds 
are clean and soft, the table fair and the attend- 
ance quite good. I have onl}^ one complaint to 
make. At the first named hotel the}^ will insist 
on a brass band's tooting a good part of the time. 
The noise it made was execrable. There is no 



YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 8 1 i 

sucli thing as bad music, it is either music or it 
is noise. At Norris, the hotel is poor and the 

managers impolite. At the Lower and at the • 

Upper Geyser Basin, the houses are unfinished, ; 

and the rooms not sufficient in number, but the 1 

people do their best to please. This endeavor | 

should cover a multitude of sins. 1 



LETTER V. 

WE LEAVE THE PARK SATISFIED. HELENA. ITS 
GOLD BEARING FOUNDATIONS. BROADWATER. 
A MAGNIFICENT NATATORIUM. A WILD RIDE 
THROUGH TOWN. CROSSING THE ROCKIES. 
SPOKANE. A BUSY TOWN. MIDNIGHT PIC- 
NIC. FINE AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY. SAGE 
BUSH A BLESSING. PICTURESQUE RUN OVER 
THE CASCADES. ACRES OF MALT LIQUORS. 
TACOMA. A STARTLING VISION OF MT. 
RENIER (TACOMA). WASHINGTON, A GREAT 
STATE. 

Tacoma, Washington, July 31,1890. 

Familiarity is said to breed contempt ; cer- 
tainly it robs strange things of much that at 
first seems marvelous. On our return from the 
excursion around the Park, the formation at 
Mammoth Hot Springs had lost much of that 
which on our first visit struck us as so wonder- 
ful and charming. We had seen other things 
greatly more wonderful with which to compare 
them. The encrustations seemed not so white 
and the colorings of the water had lost some of 
their prismatic variety and perfection. 

The impressions made upon the mind by Ni- 
agara grow on succeeding visits. A storm at 
sea arouses no less awe because several have been 
before passed through. Niagara and the ocean 

-82 - 



TACOMA. 83 

are in eternal motion. Motion irresistabl}^ sug- 
gests change, and change precludes monotony. 
One does not lose his feeling of awe, after look- 
ing for many times upon the towering heights of 
the Yungfrau or of Kinchinjinga. Their inacces 
sible peaks and eternal snows repel every dispo- 
sition to close communion. I doubt not, however, 
if a safe railroad could be run up to mighty Ever- 
est's loftiest pinnacle, that tourists would snap 
their fingers at the world's monarch when stand- 
ing in warm furs 29,000 feet above the sea. 

The still and apparently unchangeable incrus- 
tations at Mammoth Hot Springs, were looked 
upon on our final visit without awe or surprise. 
A large party of us left the hotel for Cinnabar 
closely packed in the coaches and surreys on a 
bright sunny afternoon, glad we had seen the 
wonderland, but quite satisfied to leave our labors 
behind us. As we dashed down the defile near 
the park line, we doffed our hats and bade adieu 
to the eagle sitting on its eyrie as w^e had seen 
him on our entrance. The downward ride was 
quite rapid, and some of us who had been drawn 
into somewhat close communion during the past 
vv'eek were almost sorry when we so soon reached 
Livingston — some to go eastward and others 
westward, all to part most probably forever. 

From Livingston to Helena the run was made 
at night. We found the latter a bustling place 



84 A summer's outing. 

and well worth a visit. There is an air about a 
mining camp which can be seen in no old coun- 
try, and Helena though now full of city airs yet 
has many of the characteristics of the camp. Its 
foundations rest upon gold bearing earth, and 
even now in digging cellars, quite in the town, 
pay dirt is found. Nearly the entire site of the 
city has been dug over by the miner. It was in 
one of its gulches, now a street, that a prospector 
wearied out by unsuccessful tramps and reduced 
to his last dollar, stuck in his pick to try for a 
" last chance." He had no expectation of reward, 
but dug down in sheer desperation before going 
off a pauper. The result was "The last chance 
mine," one of the richest ever discovered. 

We stopped at the Helena hotel and found it 
quite equal to any in large eastern cities. 

The Broadwater Hotel, however, some three 
to four miles out of town, is now the lion of the 
place. It is a cottage-built house, with 200 fine 
rooms, all finished in hardwoods and elegantly 
furnished. Its bathrooms, with huge porcelain 
tubs and large dressing-rooms attached to each, 
are especially fine and the baths are said to be 
medicinall}^ good. 

THE SWIMMING BATH OF THE WORLD. 

But these dwindle when compared with its 
huge swimming bath. The natatorium building 



TACOMA. 85 

is about 350 feet long by 150, with a roof 100 
feet high, supported b}^ light arches in single 
spans. The tank is 300 feet by 100; at one end 
about four feet deep, and running to ten or more 
at the other. Natural hot and cold waters pour 
over a precipice of cyclopean masses of granite 
at one end, about fift}^ feet wide and forty high. 
This precipice is pierced by three large openings 
over which the water pours in great sheets, and 
so artisticall}^ that one would easil}^ believe it 
a series of natural falls. The flow is so large 
that the tank is replenished several times a da3\ 
The temperature was to me rather high — about 
80 degrees. A swim in its deep waters, however, 
was very fine. The whole is lighted by day 
through windows high up, of cathedral glass in 
different tints, terra cotta predominating. The 
hotel, with its 200 rooms, and the tank-house 
and grounds are illuminated at night by incan- 
descent lights. We saw it onl}^ by da}^, but 
could easily imagine how beautiful it must look 
and how ga}^ a scene it must offer when 300 or 
400 people are in at night — men and ga}- ladies. 
Very decorous bathing suits are furnished to 
bathers, and those bringing their own, are com- 
pelled to have them of conventional modest3\ 
I was told that 300 bathers of an evening 
is not an unusual number, and that it is 
largely frequented during nine months of the 



86 A summer's outing. 

year and by the very best people of the city. 
The charge is fifty cents for an entrance, so 
as to keep out the riff-raff. Col. Broadwater 
has expended half a million on the house and 
grounds, bringing his hot water from a min- 
eral hot spring some four miles up a gorge, 
and a large supply of cold pure water also from 
the hills. The hotel was full. We took lunch 
with the Colonel and some friends, and found it 
like everything else, first class. A steam and an 
electric motor road leads from the city to the 
hotel. By the way, why do the street car people 
not put in electrical motors in Chicago? At St. 
Paul, Helena and Spokane we have ridden upon 
them and were delighted. A car looks as if it 
were out fishing with a fishing rod springing 
from its top, bent just as if it were playing a 
gamy fish. 

The hospitalities of the Broadwater very 
nearly cost us our connection at the railroad. 
We gave ourselves but little time, expecting to 
find a carriage ordered to be in waiting at the 
electric road city terminus. It was not there 
and we walked to our hotel to find we had but 
eleven minutes to get our luggage on a carriage 
and to reach the railroad station a mile and a 
half away. The porter said it was impossible to 
reach it in time. We ordered our traps brought 
down and rushed to our rooms for our small 



TACOMA. Sj 

pieces. At the office were a crowd of newly 
arrived travelers. I called to the clerk saying 
I had no time to pay hotel bills. He smiled. 
Taking advantage of his good humor we mounted 
the carriage telling the driver to make the train 
or die. He said he would land us on the train or 
in— naming a rather hot place. He tore through 
the town at a full gallop. People in shop 
doors looked at us and smiled. Possibly they 
suspected an old gray beard was getting away 
with a young girl. The jehu and his horses 
were plucky. The station house as we drove 
up hid the train from us, and hid us from 
it. We turned the building, the train was 
well in motion, the engineer checked up but 
the train continued to move. We jumped down ; 
the driver threw our trunk into the baggage 
car; I landed my valise on the platform of 
the next car; my daughter got her satchel on the 
next and she climbed up on the third. I caught 
on and climbed the fourth and threw the fare to 
the driver. Quite a crowd of people about the 
station admired our pluck, and when our driver 
yelled out "Hurrah for Chicago" a generous 
response went up from a score or more of throats. 
Success is admired everywhere, but out west it 
is the cure all. Every man at that station would 
at that moment have voted for me for — pound 
master. Shortly after leaving Helena the climb 



88 A summer's outing. 

is commenced in scaling the real Rocky Moun- 
tains. The road bends and winds over many 
magnificent curves and loops, rapidly climbing 
upward. Now we look far above us, at a locomo- 
tive slowly creeping along the mountain side,, 
and we look down upon the road we had a few 
moments before puffed along, but already hun- 
dreds of feet immediately under us. The moun- 
tains towered above us, covered by great black 
precipices, and mighty detached rocks standing 
alone or in groups. This is the true backbone 
of the continent, and the black scattered rocks 
might be vertebrae pushing through the worn 
cuticle. We could understand here why these 
are called the roc/ejy mountains. Rough towers 
and jagged turrets black with the weather wear 
of ages are the salient features of the heights 
and slopes. Here they are in great groups, 
there isolated. Now they are compacted into 
massive precipices, frowning and repellent, and 
then scattered as if dropped by icebergs. They 
are, however, not mighty loose boulders, but are 
moored to and are a part of the mountain's 
foundation rocks. 

We crossed some lofty trestle bridges and 
looked down upon a stream thick with mud from 
a gold washing camp near by. At length we 
reached the summit. Our extra locomotive was 
side tracked and we breathed an atmosphere 



TACOMA. 89 

perceptibly different from that we had left on the 
eastern side of the range. AVe were now upon 
the Pacific slope. 

We halted for a few minutes at ]\Iissoula. The 
fine valley was bathed in the glowing red of sun- 
set. We lost at night much beautiful wooded 
scener}^ which I once before enjo3'ed so much. 
To one simply going to Puget Sound it is worth 
while to stop over at ]\Iissoula and then to run 
down Clark's Fork by day. But we wished to 
have a full day at our next stopping place. 

Of all the cities we have seen, the busiest was 
Spokane — pronounced as if there were no ''e" 
at the end and the "a" quite broad. Seven 
3^ears ago I was there. Then it had but 800 
dwellers. Now there are in the neighborhood of 
25,000. There are several streets with elegant 
business blocks, finished or being completed, of 
four, five, and six stories in height, comparing 
favorably with those of au}^ Eastern city in arch- 
itectural design and finish. The heart of the 
city reminds one of Chicago the spring after the 
great fire, and the people seem to have the same 
pluck, and energy, and confidence that so marked 
our people at that time. Some of the private 
houses on the steep, hugely-bowldered slope of a 
high hill on one side of the cit\' are models of 
elegance. AVe visited two which were real chefs 
d'oeuvres of architectural design— one a Swiss 



90 A summer's outixg. 

chalet, the other Alooresque in design. Ever}^- 
thing was after the original models, even to 
mrchofthe furniture. I have never seen ex- 
cept in some model houses abroad such complete 
specimens. The outside of several others which 
we did not visit are quite as fine. J\Irs. Cutter, 
the proud mother of the architect, exhibited her 
house with great hospitality, and ]\Irs. I^Ioore 
seemed to feel that she had no right to hide her 
gem of a residence. 

At evening we were invited to a fete cham- 
petre on a fine lake some forty miles north of 
the cit}^ and 800 feet elevated above it. iVbout 
300 of the elite of the town went out b}^ rail, 
danced, and had supper, returning to town b\^ 
I o'clock in the morning. The 3'oung girl with 
me enjo^^ed it greatly. A severe cold just caught 
forbade my appreciating anything but the sweet, 
sincere hospitalit}^ shown us. Judge Kinnaiid, 
the son of one of the friends of my early Ken- 
tucky bo\^hood, got us the entree of Spokane's 
''four hundred." This is destined to continue a 
thriving cit}^, but lots at $1,000, four miles from 
the heart of the cit^^ will burn badh^ some real 
estate speculators. It is said a mining trade of 
nearly $50,000 a day naturally belongs to the 
town. I fear, however, there will be a bursting 
of a bubble when the burnt district shall be re- 
stored. A large trade will be necessar}^ to support 





OLD FAITHFUL. AT UPPER GEYSER BASIN. iSEE page 36. 



TACOMA. 91 

the ^reat number of mechanics and laborers 
now lifting the town from its ashes. Hotel 
Spokane is a very large and good house. 

Ver}^ fine crops are grown in the Spokane 
Valley. The crops of oats and wheat sown for 
hay was being harvested and proved a very 
heavy yield. Washington claims she will har- 
vest over 20,000,000 bushels of wheat this year. 
I was surprised to see fine fields of grain on the 
rolling plains in the great bend of the Columbia 
river. I remember speaking of the richness of 
this soil in the "Race with the Sun," but thought 
artificial irrigation would be necessary to make 
it yield. This year there are fine crops where 
only nature's watering can ever be availed of. 
One of the stations, quite removed from any 
water course, has grown into a thriving town, 
showing that the country around is prosperous. 
, I suspect that a fair rainfall cannot be relied 
upon from year to year. It will, however, be- 
come more and more reliable, for it has been the 
rule throughout the world and probably through 
all ages, that rains follow cultivation, and man's 
presence and industr}^ calls down Heaven's aid. 
The answer of Hercules to the cartman would 
be the reply of Ceres as well to the prayers of 
her votaries. 

The ash colored sage bush was thought by 
the early men of the great plains to be poison to 



92 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

the land. It however was one of God's bounties 
to man. It prevented the soil from being blown 
away and where it grew the most lavishly, is 
now found to be the best of soils. Sage bush 
not only keeps the winds away, but Avhen dead 
and rotten fills up sand pockets with material 
rich for all of the small grains. The people of 
the Yakima valley on the eastern slope of the 
Cascade mountains, boast that theirs is the gar- 
den spot of the Pacific country. They certainly 
do produce fine fruits, melons and garden vege- 
tables, but I have not been struck favorably with 
the outlook of the locality in either of my trips 
through the land. 

The run from EHensburg over the Cascades is 
a magnificent ride. The enormous mass of for- 
est, prevents many extended views, but those 
seen are very fine. Every break in the forests 
would reveal lofty mountains slopes clothed 
in forests of marvelous richness, and now and 
then snowy heights would tower aloft. Once a 
fine view of Renier is caught, the monarch of 
the grand range. Robed in his snowy ermine 
he stands out a sceptered hermit wrapped in his 
isolation. Seen from the sound he is one of the 
most picturesque peaked mountains of the 
world, and from all inland points of view he is 
a grand towering mass of ever living snow and 
ice. 



TACOMA. 93 

ARKANSAS HOT SPRINGS, RIVALED. 

Having done considerable hard work on the 
trip so far, we resolved to take a rest at the hot 
springs, three and-a-half hours from Tacoma, on 
Green River. Three years ago my boys and I 
fished here pleasantly for several days. The 
place is unpretentious, but the waters possess 
apparently the same properties as those of the 
Arkansas hot springs. The place is some four- 
teen hundred and fifty feet above Tacoma. Dur- 
ing our present three days stop, an overcoat has 
been comfortable in the evenings, and we sleep 
under three blankets. A cold batch of air drops 
down the valley from Mount Reniers (Tacoma 
calls him Mount Tacoma; Renier is his name), 
14,400 feet of snowy peak, driving away all sum- 
mer sultriness. A bath in the medicinal waters 
of seven minutes and then a pack causes the 
perspiration to flow from one quite as heavily as 
the same course would do in Arkansas. Before 
leaving home I had a large and painful carbun- 
cle on the back of my neck. The sign of the 
cross was cut deeply into it, and as it healed it 
proved a nest-egg for several smaller jewels near 
by. These I cauterized with pure carbolic in 
the park, but still they annoyed me much. Four 
baths here have at least temporarily dried them 
up. Men who came here three or four weeks 



94 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

ago on crutclies from rheumatism, are walking 
about freel}^ and feel themselves able to buckle 
down to work. 

A WONDERFUL GROWTH OF TIMBER. 

A sight of the magnificent cedar and fir for- 
ests here would amply repay an Easterner for a 
day's stop-over. I have been among them before 
several times, yet at each visit they surprise me 
as they did at first. Fifty thousand shingles are 
made from a single cedar. I counted twenty-one 
firs on a space considerably less than a quarter 
of an acre. The owner, a sawyer, assured me 
they would cut over five thousand feet of board 
each. He owns a quarter of a section about his 
mill and expects to market 15,000,000 feet of 
lumber from his land. He said the railroad com- 
pany had cut 30,000,000 feet from its right of 
way of 400 feet by ten miles in this locality. I 
saw on a quarter of an acre a cluster of twenty 
odd trees from four and-a-half feet to over six in 
diameter and 3(^0 high. They ran up about 150 
feet before reaching a limb. Mighty logs lie 
upon the ground so thickly that even a good 
woodsman can walk but little over a mile an 
hour. Cedar logs, moss-covered and sodden, 
stretch 100 feet in the tangled undergrowth, and 
have lain there so long that one often sees a fir 
tree, growing with its roots straddled over them 
50 to 100 years old. 



TACOMA. 95 

We were pleased to find among the guests of 
the springs one of Chicago's fairest daughters, 
now living at Tacoma, whose pulled-candy tresses 
three j^ears ago out-glistened the fiber of her 
bridal veil, and whose eyes are bluer than the 
turquoise in her talismanic ring. I like little 
unpretentious Green River, Hot Springs, even if 
its table is not of the Delmonico order. 

MALT LIQUORS IX THE ORIGINAL PACKAGE. 

A prett}^ drop of fourteen hundred and odd 
feet through wild rocky gorges and thickly 
treed glades, along the rapid green waters of the 
river, in which trout abound, between lofty 
heights, brought us to the world-famous hop 
yards of the Pn^^allup Valley. What masses of 
green lift upon the closely-set hop-poles ! I in- 
voluntarih^ cried '' Prosit und Gesundheit " as 
we whizzed through them. TwentA^-three or four 
3^ears ago, the first hop root was planted in the 
soil of this marvelous valley. Now in this val- 
ley- and others in this locality, two hundred and 
fift}^ thousand acres are giving forth each 3xar 
^rops unknown in any other hop land. Two 
,housand pounds to the acre are not unusual, 
and some yields have been nearly if not quite 
double that. Thousands of barrels of malt 
liquors were green about us in original pack- 
ages. 



96 A summer's outing. 

When we alighted at Tacoiiia, from which I 
date this letter, I was most agreeably surprised 
to find that Mr. Winston and his two fair daugh- 
ters were on the same train. They had intended 
going with us into the Yellowstone Park, but 
were unavoidably detained. They have done 
the Park more rapidly than we did and here 
overtook us. To-morrow w^e will be fellow-pas- 
sengers for Uncle Sam's ice-bound Eldorado, 
Alaska. Tacoma has been and is growing with 
great rapidit3\ A great suburb covers a wide 
slope on the upper end of the town, which at 
night, when I was here three years ago, had the 
appearance of a Titanic camp-fire. Fires gleamed 
along great logs ; fires burnt on sides and tops 
of lofty stumps, and fires belched forth from 
burning trees fifty and more feet from the 
ground. Diagonal auger holes had been bored 
near the root into the heart of a tree. Two 
holes meet at the heart thus causing a draught. 
Fire was put in, igniting the inflammable pitch, 
alwavs richest near the ground. It then bored 
its way up the heart to break out as from a flue, 
often a hundred feet from the roots. 

Tacoma was a cluster of shanties with a small 
population, barely among the thousands, seven 
years ago. It was a dusty, scattered, ungainl}^ 
big village of 12,000 three years ago. Now the 
census gives it about 40,000 population. The 



TACOMA. • 97 

Northern Pacific company is filling the five-mile 
flat marsh along the Pu3^allup PJver which emp- 
ties into the bay, in front of the town. A large 
part of this belong-s to the Indian Reservation, 
and is covered b}^ several feet of water dnring 
the high tides, which come np the Sonnd. The 
filling is being done by a powerful pumping 
dredge, which pours each day a vast quantity of 
sand and silt from the deeper part of the river 
upon the flats to be filled. My friends Christy 
and Wise of the Illinois Club, Chicago, are part 
owners of the powerful dredge, and I suspect are 
making a big thing of it. The reclaimed land 
will, when high and dry, be worth millions, and 
will be the seat of the best business portion of 
the future city. The generous way . in which 
this great railroad company has taken possession 
of and is appropriating the fat of this place re- 
minds one forcibl}^ of what is or may be going 
on in a cit}^ between this and the Atlantic. Co- 
lumbian World's Fair Commissioners, Directors, 
and City Councils may possibly be sometimes 
just a little too generous, as Congresses are and 
have been. The people may sometimes permit 
their patriotic fervor to make them somewhat 
unobservant of the wide reach and tenacious 
grasp of monopoly. Corporations are said to 
have no souls. Railroad corporations are as 
voracious as their iron horses and have con- 
sciences as cold as their iron rails. 



98 A summer's outing. 

The big hotel here is now crowded with trav- 
elers, the most of them just returned from or 
about to sail for Alaska. Cots are doubled up 
in many rooms. The wide veranda, overlooking 
the sound, last night was full of gay pronie- 
naders from many quarters of the Union ; they 
enjoyed very fair music from the house band, 
while they watched with delight the unique 
spectacle of what appeared « to be a new moon 
arising in the east with its crescent bent down- 
ward instead of upward. Fair Luna arose to us 
immediately over the sharp rounded pinnacle of 
lofty Mount Tacoma. She presented a narrow 
silver crescent — a mere thread at first, but wax- 
ing by a rapid crescendo movement, she showed 
her first, her second, and her third quarter, and 
then her full rounded self in all of her cold glory 
many degrees up in the sky. The proud moun- 
tain having played his short role of eclipsing a 
planet at once sank into gray nothingness. It 
seemed a pity the moon's movement was so rapid. 
She is a cold, frickle jade and is said to be 
from rim to core hard in eternal frost. It was 
but fitting she should rest awhile on yonder 
pinnacled home of eternal ice and snow. 

During the afternoon of yesterday after our 
arrival, all of the mountain's lower mass, more 
than two-thirds of its height, was absolutely in- 
visible, veiled in translucent, unclouded haze. 



TACOMA. 99 

No one could have guessed a mountain was 
there, but high up some four to five thousand 
feet of his ice-locked lofty summit hung like a 
gigantic balloon, thinly silvered and delicately 
burnished, floating on airy nothingness some ten 
degrees above the horizon. To those who have 
never seen this effect of a snow-clad mountain, 
the picture was startling and to all was weird in 
the extreme. Few mountain chiefs in the world 
are seen to such advantage as Tacoma from this 
point on a clear day. The beholder standing on 
a level of the sea sees the whole of the cone in 
all of the majesty of fourteen thousand four 
hundred and odd feet, over 6,000 feet of this be- 
ing clothed in eternal snow. We were lucky in 
seeing the floating summit yesterday, for a 
change of wind has since then brought the 
smoke from forest fires down into the valley to- 
day, and a compass is necessary to fix the great 
mountain's exact location. He may keep him- 
self impenetrably veiled for several weeks. If I 
be not mistaken, I was told he was invisible last 
year for nearly if not quite three months. 

Mr. Clint Snowden, the Secretary of the Board 
of Trade, has been our cicerone, as the board 
was our host, in showing us about the city to- 
day. Its growth one could scarcely comprehend 
from the information as the increase of popula- 
tion. Seeing has shown the naked truth. The 



loo A summer's outing. 



great kindness to me in the past of friends in 
Seattle has made me rather a Seattler. But I 
tremble lest it may not be able to keep pace with 
its pushing rival. Will the country be able to 
support two big cities ? I have great faith in 
the country. Three years ago I said there would 
be a mighty empire along the Pacific slope — that 
is, a mighty part of the great Nation of the 
continent. Each visit here more and more im- 
presses me that my prophecy will be fulfilled. 
I recalled the fact that we once thought it an 
outrage that " the Father of his country " should 
have his state-namesake off in an out of the 
way corner of the country, and that corner a 
mountainous mass of worthless land; but now 
one can realize that Washington will be the 
most picturesque state in the Union, and when 
America becomes densely populated, it will be 
one of the richest. The yield of all kinds ; lum- 
ber, coal, hops, wheat and oats, fish and fruits 
will this 3^ear equal that of many of the eastern 
states. The state will ere many years have gone 
by, prove a magnificent namesake of the Father 
of his country. 

Dust is one of the most serious impedimenta 
of the Pacific slope ; for three months of the 
year it makes one's throat and lungs a sort of 
mortar bed, but the soil which so easily turns to 
impalable powder and in such quantities as to be 



TACOMA. lOI 

almost solid along some of the roads, is of mar- 
velous richness. The trees are nearl}^ as impos- 
ing monarchs as are the mountains ; the flowers 
are as beautiful as the rivers are clear and 
pearly ; the fruits are glorious and the climate 
is delicious. Though the noon-day sun is so 
hot as to make a broad-brimmed hat or an um- 
brella a necessity, yet the nights are so cold that 
one gets chilled under less than three blankets. 
Speaking of fruits, we must say that excepting 
in the Caucasus the world has no equal for the 
cherries of this locality — so pulpy and so big. 
A peddler selling some, captured his purchaser 
when he cried out: "But, then, sir; them's 
cherries, not apples." While writing this the 
sun marches deeply into the West. We must 
soon board the steamer which sails before day to- 
morrow. 



LETTER VI. 

THRIVING AND PICTURESQUE SEATTLE. TWO 
CURIOUS MEETINGS. VICTORIA AND ITS 
FLOWERS. ESOUIMAULT AND THE WARSPITE. 
TWO BROKEN HEARTED GIRLS. CHARMING 
SAIL ON THE INLAND SEA. PICTURESQUE 
MOUNTAINS. GROWTH OF ALASKA. WHALES 
AND THEIR SPORTS. NATIVE ALASKANS. 
THEIR HOMES, HABITS, FOOD, FEASTS AND 
WILD MUSIC. BASKETS AND BLANKETS. SAL- 
MON FISHERIES. MINES AND DOGS. 

Steamer Queen, Aug. lo, 1890. 

I wrote voluminously from the Yellowstone 
National Park, quite at large on the run on the 
Northern Pacific railroad, and expected to make 
a big letter on the Alaskan excursion. But I 
am discouraged. If all the pencils seen making 
copious notes and extracting from route and 
other books on this steamer were preparing let- 
ters, and if a like proportion on the other regular 
steamers do the same, then the thing will be 
written into the ground during this season alone. 
I will, however, commence a short letter; the 
humor of my pen ma}^ make it a long one. 

We boarded the "Queen" at Tacoma the night 
of the 31st of July. Before morning we cleared 
the port, and at six landed at Seattle for a two 
hours stop. It was too early for us to see au}^ of 

102 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. IO3 

our friends, but giving us time to mark the won- 
derful growth of the last three years. In my 
last, the possibility of Tacoma taking the lead of 
Seattle was expressed. When one sees the ele- 
gant houses going up or gone up here since the 
fire of a year ago ; looks over the hills which 
were three years since clothed with forests but 
now are covered Avith beautiful residences ; drives 
over paved streets where he so short a time since 
w^as choked by dust ; and glides in cable and 
electric cars smoothly up grades which make a 
w^alk laborious and caused the horses in his car- 
riage to pant and blow — when one sees all these 
things and recalls the pluck of these people when 
they let the world know they wanted no help 
from outside when their cit}^ la}' in ashes, then 
he feels Tacoma will have a mighty struggleeven 
with the Northern Pacifiers help to catch and 
lead Seattle. 

The Tacoma people claim that the United 
States census gives them the larger population. 
This the Seattleite denies, and I suspect with 
justice. He claims his city will have over 
43,000 population, all within the compact boun- 
daries of the town, and several thousands in the 
suburbs. Many may be there helping to build 
the place up out of its ashes. The greater pro- 
portion of them will probably remain perma- 
nently, for Seattle has a great trade. Before the 



I04 A summer's outing. 

fire a year ago it was rather over crowded. The 
large warehouses and hotels now gone up, are 
not in advance of the demand. I was, the day 
before while driving about Tacoma, almost a 
Tacoma man. But as our ship bent out of her 
rival's harbor, I was again a Seattler. 

The view of the city perched upon its terraced 
hills is very imposing from the bay, and recalls 
a long ago prospect from the sea at Genoa. 
While the Queen was steaming out of the bay 
into the open sound, I mounted to the hurricane 
deck for a parting view of the picturesque place. 
At the foot of the upper gang way I paused to 
let a gentleman and lady pass me on their de- 
scent from above. The gentleman held out his 
hand saying " Mr. Harrison, I think ; we never 
met but once before. We were vis-a-vis at the 
dinner table in Colombo, Ceylon. My wife and I 
had just landed from the " Rome " on our way 
from Australia. You were about to embark on 
her for Suez." Indeed if I be not mistaken I 
got the state room he had vacated. Mr. Sargent 
and his wife, had a few days ago arrived at San 
Francisco from Japan and were then on their 
way to Alaska before going to their home in 
New Haven, from which they had been absent 
for several years. This meeting made a singu- 
lar co-incidence with another of the day before 
at Tacoma. As I was crossing the rotunda of 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. I05 

the Tacoma hotel, a stranger accosted me, and 
at the same time held out his hand, saying 
"This is ]\Ir. Harrison of Chicago, is it not?" I 
replied "Yes". "We never met but once Mr. 
Harrison, and that was at the supper table at 
Agra, India. We sat side by side and talked of 
the Taj," This gentleman was from New York 
and was too, on his way to Alaska. He had just 
come from the East and had expected to sail on 
the Queen, but not being able to secure a berth, 
was about to go aboard the George W. Elder, 
which had been crippled on a rock the week 
before, and sailed from Tacoma the evening of 
the 31st. It was pleasant thus to meet these 
people — utter strangers to each other, whom I 
had encountered on the other side of the w^orld. 
It is remarkable how often such chance meetings 
come to voyagers in distant regions. It shows 
how the love of travel grows upon one. Seeing 
begets a desire for seeing. A large number of 
our fellow passengers on this excursion have 
been world wanderers. 

We tied to the pier at Port Townsend for a 
couple of hours. We had time for a hasty run over 
the town and to measure the march of its improve- 
ment during the past three years. It has grown 
very considerably and improved much. Its people 
make huge calculations as to its future, but have no 
expectation of their town being a rival of the other 



io6 A summer's outing. 

two cities. It has been the port of entry for the 
Sound, which has given it considerable advan- 
tages. This exclusive privilege it w^ill hereafter 
have to share with one or both of the others. 
Back of it lies the unexplored Olympian moun- 
tains, in which many think rich gold mines will 
be found. If this should be the case, then Port 
Townsend will forge ahead. 

Our far northern excursion is now coming to 
a close. We have done Alaska and are again 
sailing through British waters. Vancouver Isle 
stretches to our right. We can easily imagine 
that a turn of a headland may reveal the War- 
spite, with her guns, throwing 300-pound shot, 
ready to knock us into pi should our Yankee in- 
clinations tempt us to give a too short twist on 
the lion's tail. By the wa}^, the ironclad bearer 
of the Admiral's broad pennant, is a ferocious 
looking monster. 

Having three hours at our command before 
dark on our arrival at Victoria the first of 
the month, we drove about the staid and 
orderly town, drinking in air laden with the 
breath of honeysuckle embowering lattice, and 
cottage ; exclaiming in delight at sight of roses 
hanging in mighty clusters and festooning 
porches and verandas, or lifting their faces six 
inches from out to out on strong stems in the 
gardens ; and having our eyes refreshed by par- 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 107 

terres of dalilias, nasturtiums, feverfews, and 
many delicate flowers in white or of every tint. 
This town was evidently settled directly from 
England. The love evinced for cottage adorn- 
ment would have been lost in a passage through 
the Canuck settlements of the East. The sweet 
embowered cottage is an English institution, 
as thoroughly as is "magna charta." Wherever 
either exists we know it to be a heritage from 
the seagirt isle. 

THE FAIRY-LIKE HARBOR OF THE BRITISH 
FEEE1\ 

Our drive brought us about six o'clock to Es- 
quimault, the fairy-like harbor of the British 
fleet of the North Pacific. What a little gem it 
is ! A rounded patch of sea, a few hundred 
yards in diameter, lifted up and dropped thirty 
fathoms deep among well- wooded, sloping hills 
and connected by a short, deep channel less than 
a hundred feet wide, with the mighty ocean. 
This channel is in fact a gateway with smooth 
granite buttresses, of bowlder-like surface, lift- 
ing a few feet above high tide. These buttres- 
ses were built by no human hand, but were born 
of the molten mass poured up from the earth's 
fiery center. The very globe shook and reeled 
in volcanic spasms at their birth. Here, in this 
quiet little harbor, thoroughly protected from 



io8 A summer's outing. 

the outer sea, lay the fearful man of war War- 
spite, a sleeping Titan, surrounded by several 
others less formidable, but yet of ugly dimen- 
sions. Close by the entrance of the harbor is a 
great dry dock, in which American vessels have 
been courteously repaired. Near this is a little 
hamlet where one can get a fair meal and can 
take rowing boat to visit the great ships. 

The drive from town to the harbor is very 
charming; through pretty woods^ on good roads, 
overlooking green arms of the sea which run 
back into the hills, in crystal clearness. One 
can well say these sea-creeks run back into the 
hills, for the incoming tides send currents up 
them of great strength. Pretty villas are built 
along the w^ell kept roads, and acres of wild roses 
scent the air, w^hile the red barked Arbutis leans 
over the cool streams with knarled bronze like 
arms and branches. The excursion steamers all 
anchor at Victoria long enough to permit tour- 
ists to take this and other drives. 

When we reached the neighborhood of the 
man-of-war, it was so late that we had no expec- 
tation of going aboard, but our hackman desirous 
of putting in as much time as possible, and a 
boatsman in want of a job assured us we would 
be received aboard the Warspite. A large num- 
ber of her 600 complement were leaning over 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. IO9 

the bulwarks, and gold lace and brass buttons 
shone upon the e^^es of our two 3'oung girls. 
Their little hearts fluttered as no glacier of the 
Arctic zone could have made them do. iVli! 
what a wondrous spell the glitter on the shoul- 
ders of soldier or sailor works upon the female 
heart! Even the married woman of our party 
had a heightened color as we approached the 
gangway of the might}" ship. Fanc}" the two 
broken hearts of the girls and the composed, sad 
face of the matron when a sailor came down the 
gangway to inform us the hour for visitors was 
past, that no one was received after five o'clock. 
One of the men of our party told him the next 
time we came we would board his ship from the 
deck of the "Chicago." He laughed. There is 
no taint of a quarrel between the brave tars of 
an English and an American man-of-war. We 
rowed slowly a\Yay. The music from the band 
poured down upon us from the decks and was 
caught in sweet echo b}^ the hills around. How 
I pitied the girls ! They are just on the edge of 
society, and what tales the}' could have told their 
schoolmates ! Chicago's late representative at 
the Court of the Shah of'Persia smiled as only 
one who had been at a court could smile. But 
the girls uttered sighs which smote the writer's 
too sympathetic soul. 



no A summer's outing. 



WHEN WE GOBBLE UP CANADA. 

The Warspite lies at Esquimault (up here 
called Squimal) ready to shake the icebergs of 
Behring Sea. A word to President Harrison and 
Secretary Blaine : Don't tell England that our 
blood is up to fighting heat, until we are ready 
to gobble down Canada and the Canadian Pacific 
railway at a mouthful. It can be done and not 
at the expense of a very wr}^ face. Then let 
England roam about the oceans to her hearts 
content, while we Yankees will play base-ball 
with a continent for our grounds, with basemen 
and shortstops between the two oceans, and out- 
fielders on the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic 
seas. 

SAILING THROUGH THE ISLES OF THE PACIFIC. 

We are now on our tenth da}^ from Tacoma. 
The ship will reach her home Tuesda}^, the 
twelfth da}^, having sailed over 2,100 miles ; 
some ten hours of this was in the open Pacific, 
from Glacier Bay to Sitka, and then from that 
port south to Clarence Strait. The remainder 
of the distance was in the interior channels, and 
across perhaps a half-dozen short opeuings into 
the sea. The several channels have fixed names 
and are of various breadths, from 200 or 300 
yards to four or five miles. Sometimes we Avere 
next the broad continent, but often small islands 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. Ill 

lay between the straits and tlie mainland, with, 
large islands or smaller ones several deep, to- 
Avards the sea. The sailing along the watery 
road was plain^and easy except in two narrow 
straits, Avhere the ship had to slow np frequently, 
while she bent in and out to avoid rocks. These 
are taken partly as cut-offs and partly for the 
beauty of the scenery. The islands are all 
mountains lifted from the water ; all are more or 
less tree-clad, with peaks on the tallest, rocky, 
jagged, and oftentimes with streamers of snow 
stretching downward in their upper gorges. 

Vancouver Island is 300 miles long, covered 
by a broad, lofty range of mountains in pile be- 
hind pile, broken and in some instances with 
heads wrapped in perpetual snow. North of 
this along the way are four irregularly shaped 
long islands, around each of which a good 
steamer would require nearly a day to sail. 
These, too, are a mass of rugged, jagged, sharply 
pointed and peaked mountains in very confused 
mass, with no valleys, but with narrow gorges 
and small flats, along many of which pour pel- 
lucid streams from snowy heights. Seen from 
the south, the mountains are green up to a 
height of two or more thousand feet, with rocky 
summits flecked with snow or banded in the 
long downward gorges. Viewed from the north, 
the snow often lies in broad fields and always is 



112 A summer's outing. 



in greater profusion then when seen from other 
points of the compass. The smaller island 
mountains are not so lofty, but are beyond the 
dignity of hills, being from 1,500 to 2,000 and 
some of them 3,000 feet high. 

AWE-INSPIRING MOUNTAINS. 

To the eastward the mainland presents one 
continuous mass of mountains ; never in even 
ranges, but all broken, toothed and needled, with 
foothills next the water green and rounded. 
The loftier masses behind shoot their rocky 
height into the blue sky from 3,000 to nearly 
5,000 feet above the sea. Flecks and bands of 
snow are never absent from these, and often the 
smooth upper heights are wrapped in pure man- 
tles of white. 

Into the mainland enter many crooked, deep 
inlets antlered in form, the counterparts of the 
fiords of Norway with this difference, those of 
Norway have generally lofty precipices lifting 
directly from the water ; here there are fewer 
precipices. The mountains, however, lift up 
very steep, with wooded slopes, but permitting 
their pinnacles to be seen. Some prospectors 
abroad told us that the scenery on these fiords 
was majestic in the extreme. And well it may 
be, for nearly all of the inlets are flanked by 
notched and peaked mountains, shooting into 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. I13 

tlie sky Avitli shoulders and necks wrapped in 
eternal frosts. When our great Republic shall 
have its boundary lines marked only by oceans 
and seas, then these bold highlands should be 
set apart as a continental park for the free peo- 
ple of the Western hemisphere. 

The mountains of both mainland and islands 
are thoroughly picturesque, with rugged upper 
members topped out in sharp points and rocky 
pinnacles, such as are seen nowhere in the old 
states of our countr}^ and but rarely in the new 
ones or in any of the old Territories, There are 
no deciduous or hardwood trees, and but few 
hardwood shrubs. Firs, balsams, and hemlocks 
cover the mountain sides, and cedars sometimes 
are seen in the small flats next the sea or up the 
gullies. The forests on mountains slopes are of 
small trees, and no track of the fire fiend is ever 
seen. The air is so humid along the entire outer 
sea coast from the mouth of the Columbia to 
Behring Strait that one cannot avail himself of 
forest fires to help clear the land. Should the 
trees be deadened and fall, they would lie sodden 
and wet until destroyed by sluggish rot, wliile 
tangled undergrowth and young forests would 
spring up in almost impenetrable maze. On 
many mountain slopes more than half of the 
trees are dead but still standing, while often are 
seen great belts of bare, dead trunks, with not a 



114 ^ summer's outinc 

single live one, but a green carpet of fresli after- 
growtli spreading over the ground. The soil is 
so thin upon the rocky mass of the mountain 
that sustenance is not afforded for any but young 
and vigorous forests. After a few years' growth 
the living die to make a soil for larger ones to 
come. Thus ever do the young feed upon the 
old. A man works, accumulates and dies, for 
his children to feed upon his hoarded fat, per- 
haps to squander it in riotous living. One fre- 
quently sees here the footprints^ of avalanches 
which have swept the accumulations of long 
years, trees and soil, into the sea or gorges, leav- 
ing the rock bare as it was in its primal up- 
heaval. So, too, misfortunes and unavoidable 
shocks sweep away the heritage of worthy sons 
from worthy sires. 

THE RUINS OF MIGHTY FORESTS. 

On the more gentle slopes and in the small 
valleys of Alaska, fallen timber builds up a rich 
soil. The trees, however, lie for many years 
piled one upon another, the newer upon the 
older, and all heavily covered with moss and 
yielding to slow decay. When decayed, they 
make a soil so uneven in surface that a walk 
oyer it is an arduous task. When a tree falls it 
lies and moulders for long years ; heavy, rich 
moss wraps it as in thick blankets. In this way 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. II 5 

the ground becomes covered by hummocks sev- 
eral feet high. These hummocks are as thick 
as graves in an old cemetery. We saw an up- 
turned tree back of Sitka ten to twelve feet in 
diameter some distance from its roots. Saplings 
ten inches in diameter were growing among its 
upturned roots fifteen feet from the ground. 
Moss six inches thick lay like a winding sheet 
about the trunk. Half of the lower trunk had 
been slabbed off, I suspect by natives for ma- 
terial for their carved wood work, for it was 
perfectly sound. 

Another large tree lay prone at great length. 
A fir over three feet in diameter was sitting 
astride it, sending its roots down to the 
ground on either side. A trail running across 
it made it necessary to cut down into the old 
trunk. The wood left at the bottom was per- 
fectly sound. Again I saw a large tree perched 
some feet up upon an old stump, its roots 
having found the ground down in the hollow. 
The majority of the large trees on the flats 
have grotesque trunks for several feet from 
the ground, showing that they had been dis- 
torted by old trunks, in whose moss-covered 
sides the seed from which they sprang had ger- 
minated. The air is so full of moisture that 
moss soon covers a fallen tree and furnishes the 
best bed for sprouting the delicate seed of 



ii6 .v summer's outixg. 

coniferae. The expense of clearing sucli land as 
might be fitted for cultivation Avill retard for 
a long time an}^ agricultural pursuits in Alaska. 
A well-posted man assured me it would cost $600 
per acre. 

Live stock would thrive here if lands could 
be opened. Grasses are rich and luxuriant, 
and the few horses and cows seen were sleek 
and fat. But I do not think from what 
we saw and heard that either as an agricul- 
tural or as a grazing countr}^ Alaska ever will 
or can be a success. Cauliflowers, lettuce, pota- 
toes, and several other garden vegetables looked 
well at Sitka and Fort Wrangel but in small 
patches. A few beds of popj^ies and daisies were 
very fine, and several other flowers were 
brightl3^ 3'ellow in the little gardens. 

'' THERE SHE BLOWS ! " 

We have had charming weather — the Captain 
says the best trip of the season. Several of our 
passengers give 3^our correspondent credit for 
being the mascot of the part}' — a compliment 
very complacentl}^ accepted. The good, sunu}^ 
days have not onl}^ enabled us to enjoy hugeV 
the beautiful and often sublime scenery-, but 
have given us mau}^ opportunities for stud^-ing 
some of the mannerisms of the leviathans of the 
deep. We have seen man}' Avhales, several 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. II7 

times ten to twenty at once, and at close range. 
The}^ rolled themselves in grand dignity np out 
of the water a few hundred 3^ards from us, and, 
slowh^ bending, threw their flukes several feet 
into the air. Then they avouM spurt great ge3^s- 
ers ten or more feet high, making a noise not un- 
like that made by elephants when blowing dust 
over themselves, but far louder. Indeed, when 
some blew a hundred yards awa}^ from us, it 
sounded like a somewhat continuous emission 
from a steam stack. 

To-day several fine fellows were very near 
us, and one apparentl}^ young one threw him- 
self several feet entirely into the air. He 
seemed from twelve to eighteen feet long. 
The passengers thought it a baby w^hale sport- 
ing for the amusement of its dam. But a glass 
happening to catch him on the fly it was discov- 
ered he had a decided snout. Some of us then 
decided it to be a Greenland shark, which has 
an underjaw provided with very sharp, rather 
protruding teeth, with which it scoops out of a 
whale great chunks of blubber. Close by where 
it leaped a large whale lifted its fluke almost 
perpendicularly out of the water and thrashed it 
into foam. This was kept up for several hun- 
dred yards till we got too far awa}^ to see it well. 
This we are told is sometimes done in a kind of 
wanton sport, but I suspect in this instance the 



ii8 A summer's outing. 

monster was trying to defend itself from one of 
its inveterate enemies. At any rate our passen- 
gers were afforded a very unusual sight. 

THE NATIVE ALASKANS. 

Of the animated nature, however, exhibited 
for our amusement and study, the native Alas- 
kans were the most interesting part. They are 
very improperly called Indians, being of a dis- 
tinct race from the American red men. I went 
into several shacks or native houses. They are 
built by the natives, and under no outside advice 
or architectural interference. I saw the manner 
of arrangement of their little stock of furniture. 
I saw them preparing their food and eating their 
meals ; heard them talk, and watched the play 
of their features when trading and when having 
some sport. I thought I saw cropping out 
everywhere decided Japanese characteristics. It 
is difficult to name or enumerate the points of 
resemblance. But they exist, and are to me far 
more marked than any resemblance between the 
Japanese and the Chinese, who are supposed by 
most ethnologists to be of cognate families. These 
people are to me degraded descendants of the 
land of the rising sun who entered America 
through the Aleutian Isles. 

The Alaskan shacks are generally located 
near the water, in somewhat orderly rows, one 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. II9 

behind tlie other. They usualh', as far as I 
could see, consist of a single room occupying the 
entire house. x\t or near the center of the build- 
ing is a square, covered with dirt when the 
house is raised up, or if the house be low down, 
then on the ground, whereon the fire burns. 
Around this square is a somewhat raised 
platform, as in a Japanese house; on this, the 
different members of the family, or the several 
families have their separate locations, Avith their 
boxes, beds and other individual propert3^ Fre- 
quently the room is thirt}^ to fort}^ feet square, 
and houses ten, twent}', and often fort}^ or more 
people. These are members of a large famil}^ or 
of a sub-tribe. B3' the way a woman is fre- 
quenth^ chief of a tribe, and one reads over the 
door in large letters the name of "Blank (a 
woman) chief." The Indians seem to evince a 
sort of boastfulness in the numberings on their 
houses, which at Sitka run from 3,000 or 4,000 
up to five and six. It is barel}^ possible this may 
be a part of a S37stem of enumeration running 
through several colonies or tribes, and through- 
out the land wherever such tribes live. But a 
white man living in the territory told us it arose 
from the native desire to look big and to appear 
as one of a great multitude. 

The individual possessions of the diff"erent 
members of a family, are kept in boxes and piled 



I20 A SU:MMER'S OUTIN'G. 



upon them. I looked into several of these boxes. 
Every thing was thrown in pell-mell — shoes, 
skins, scarfs, tools, pails and even iron pots and 
axes. The packing of a box looked as if it had 
been done in a hurr\\ The women and children 
when indoors were found, except at meal time, 
squatted about the several platforms. When at 
meals they were huddled on their haunches on 
the earthen square about the open fire. There 
are no chimneys to the houses. The fire being 
built in the center of the squares, the smoke goes 
out as in Japan through openings in the center 
of the roof, and to a considerable extent through 
the doors. About and above the openings in the 
roof are a sort of screen which ma}^ be shifted ac- 
cording to the direction of the wind. 

In several small shacks at Juneau, old fash- 
ioned iron stoves were seen, with stove pipes 
leading above the roof. The inside of a shack is 
an omnium gatherum, not only of people of both 
sexes and of all ages, but of fishing nets, axes 
and saws, boat paddles, and blocks on which 
wooden work was being done. Dried fish and 
pelts stretched are on the walls and hanging 
from the roof poles. 

The natives are very dark and swartlu^, and 
have rather a yellow tinge in their complexions 
than red; have large heads and huge, broad, 
flat, stolid faces, long bodies, short, ill-shaped 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 121 

legs, and ungaiiih^ gaits. The habit of squat- 
ting when a.t rest, and when propelling their 
canoes and fishing, has developed nnduh^ the 
upper bod\' at the great expense of the lower 
limbs. They obtain their livelihood from the 
sea, and spend much more than half of their 
waking hours in their dugouts. The}' have no 
thwarts in their canoes to sit upon, but squat 
down upon the bottom, or bend on their knees. 
This causes the legs to dwindle when Aoung and 
to become decidedly crooked. This, too, is the 
cause of their decidedl}^ shambling gait when 
walking. They do not look bright, but are 
skilled in all things the}- understand, and learn 
with great rapidit}', not b}' imitation as the Chi- 
nese do,*but from inborn aptitude like that of the 
Japanese. Their blankets, made of the wool of 
the mountain goat, are marvels of closely woven 
fabrics, and their baskets of a kind of tough 
grass are as close as the finest Panama hats and 
ver}^ harmoniousl}^ colored. Thc}^ carve fairh^ in 
wood, their totems and small ware being quite 
artistic. In silver ornamentation the}' excel. 
Blankets are the medium of exchange ; not the 
native ornamental blankets, but those introduced 
by the Hudson Bay people. The old traders 
bought furs, and pelts, paying for them in 
woolen blankets. A pile of furs was worth so 
manv blankets. From what I can learn the skill 



12 2 A SUMMERS OUTING. 

of a native trader has alwa37s been in his ability 
to demand a large number of blankets for his 
goods, and then to maintain as long as possible 
the stolidity of his countenance, during the hig- 
gling necessary to meet the views of the shrewd 
Hudson Bay fellow. About the places we visited 
only silver coin is taken in trade, and a native 
man or woman rarely drops a peg from the price 
first demanded. 

THE HOME AT SITKA. 

At a school, " The Home," in Sitka, under the 
control of a church organization in the States, 
are a large number of girls and boys of all sizes. 
They are neat, intelligent in feature, recite 
fluently and feelingly simple speeches and 
verses, and sing sweetly and as if they felt not 
only the sense but the harmony of their hymns. 
A band of twenty youths plays brass instru- 
ments well and with great precision in time. 
They have all pleasant low voices and the girls 
exceedingly sweet ones. I noticed the same 
characteristics among some wholely uneducated 
and semi-savage women when singing to a wild 
uncouth dance of the men. 

A party of about sixty of a certain family re- 
turned in canoes from berr3dng while we were in 
Sitka. They went through uncouth motions 
while in the boats and then danced in savage 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. I23 

grotesqueness on the shore, where they were re- 
ceived by the men and women of other families 
in wild glee. It was a berry " potlach " or feast. 
The women's voices could be heard singing in 
low, weird but sweet monotone. After dancing 
and distributing pieces of calico among certain 
of the berr3^ing people, a party of over a hun- 
dred entered a large shack, closing the door to 
us white outsiders. There they went through 
some long ceremonies. I managed to get inside 
and for a few minutes was not disturbed. All 
were squatted around the great room, in the 
center of which was a fire, the smoke going out 
of an aperature in the roof When I entered all 
were singing in so Ioav a tone that it could al- 
most be termed crooning. The whole thing was 
weird and wild, but the singing was not lacking 
in untutored melod3\ Some other tourists see- 
ing me get in also entered, opening the door so 
widely that the wind drove the smoke back into 
the room. A sort of head man who was next 
the fire leading the song, got angry — gave the 
word, when alL got up hurriedl}", and each tak- 
ing a large basket or bowl full of berries went 
off to their respective homes. 

From" what I could learn, a whole sub-tribe 
takes boats and visits some localit}^ possibh^ a 
da}^ or more's sail awav, where the berr}^ crop is 
known to be good. They remain until their 



124 A summer's outing. 

canoes are well filled. When they return some 
of the men stand up in the canoes arrayed in 
showy colored calico or other bright stuff — and 
shout and sing and wildly gesticulate. By this, 
those in the village at once understand whether 
or not the excursion has been successful. In 
accordance therewith the returning party is met 
on the landing. If unsuccessful with dirges and 
lamentations. If successful with a "potlatch," 
a species of J0370US fete. 

The party we saw were in high feather. Be- 
dizened fellows stood in the prows of the boats, 
going through gesticulations and contortions 
which, had they been white men, would have 
overturned the treacherous dugouts. They 
shouted and chanted in wild glee. Their songs 
were returned from the shore. There were fort}^ 
to sixty in the returning party. As soon as 
their keels touched the strand, they poured out, 
a few in uncouth antics, but the bulk of them in 
solemn decorousness. When landed one two or 
more sang in wild weird tones, the women join- 
ing in the chorus. After going through certain 
formalities, presents w^ere given to members of 
the returning party, of coin, and of strips or 
pieces one or more yards long of calico in red or 
other bright colors. Then the singing was con- 
tinued, and the berries were removed from the 
canoes and carried into a large shack where 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 1 25 

other ceremonies were gone tlirough. No white 
people \vere allowed to enter. A couple of na- 
tives stood guard at the door, and grufiy if not 
angril}^ turned off all who attempted to gain in- 
gress. The ceremonies were continued within 
for two or three hours. It was at the later end 
of this that I gained admission, as above stated, 
while the attention of the guards was removed. 

The whole thing seemed very ridiculous, es- 
peciall}^ when one remembered that at best only 
a fev\^ bushels of huckleberries v/ere the occasion 
of the rejoicing. Our Grecco-maniacs, however, 
should not deem the thing small. For accord- 
ing to Homer, the immediate success of the dem- 
ioiods of Greece — the heroes who o-yrated in that 
wonderful tempest-in-a-tea-pot, the Trojan ^var, 
did quite as silh^ things over just as pitiful suc- 
cesses. After all, too, it is not the size of a 
thing which makes it valuable, but the size the 
possessor thinks it possesses. A bushel of huck- 
leberries to an Alaskan is quite as large, as a 
schooner load of wheat would be to old Hutch, 
or a dozen car load of pigs would be to P. D, A. 

THE DELICACIES OF THE TABLE. 

I went into a house at Juneau ; a woman and 
several children with one man were squatted 
around the lire takinsf their dinners. This con- 
sisted of a large dried salmon. A wx")man held 



126 A summer's outing. 

it in her hand before the hot fire, screening her 
hand by a fold of the fish. When it was cooked 
on one side enough to burn her hand, she turned 
another fold and when satisfied with her culi- 
nary art, tore it apart in a large wooden bowl. 
The fish was in fact scarcely at all cooked, but 
was simply made very hot. This, however, 
seemed satisfactory to the feasters. Each mem- 
ber of the family tore a piece off with fingers or 
teeth. The hands of the young girls were soaked 
with the oil exuding from the hot and fat sal- 
mon. They wiped them clean several times 
during the meal upon their luxuriant tresses, 
which hung down their backs in massive braids. 
I think I must have a good-natured face, for I 
have never in any land offended when making 
such domiciliary visits. In this instance the 
woman wished me to join them in their feast, as- 
suring me it was good. At least I so took the 
words w^ith the expressions of face used. They 
had no bread of any sort. After they had suffic- 
iently filled themselves, each took a long draught 
of water, from a native wooden pail. 

Salmon is the staple article of food, and hangs 
drying by the scores and hundreds on racks in 
front of each shack or house and upon the walls 
within. The fish on the racks seemed small, 
possibly such are reserved for home consump- 
tion, while the larger ones had been sold to the 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 1 27 

canneries. The Alaskan salmon, however, is 
not a large one. It must be fattening food, for 
men and women are generally plump and the 
children as rounded as wxll-fed pigs. The little 
ones are as frisky and happy as in Japan, which 
I thought the paradise of babies. I was struck 
by the full rounded paunches of the little ones. 
This, too, is remarkable among their little 
cousins in the land of the rising sun ; possibly 
a result of fish diet. During the summer season 
the Indians consume large quantities of berries 
— blue or huckleberries and salmon berries. 
The English call the latter, cloud berry in Nor- 
way. I saw a basket full of a white clustered 
root in front of a shack ; a sort of bunch of 
small seed like bulbs compacted into a single 
bulb, very white, not unlike a mass of snow- 
drops glued together into a ball walnut-sized. 
I asked a woman who was washing them if they 
were good. She grinned and put a handful into 
her mouth as answer, at the same time handing 
me some. They tasted like a starchy paste 
made from impalpable flour. I asked the name. 
She replied " Chinook (Indian) lice." They 
cannot pronounce the " r," but Chinese-like 
substitute " 1 " for it. 

Another delicacy is a kind of ver3^ small fish 
Qgg^ deposited by a sort of herring on fine twigs 
of hemlock placed by the natives in certain 



128 A summer's outing. 

places ill the sea for the purpose. The eggs are 
clustered on the twigs until they are as big as 
one's thumb, thousands upon thousands, upon a 
small branched limb. The branches are hung 
up to diy. When used they are soaked in fresh 
water and the eggs stripped off by the hand. 
The eggs when soaked swell till they seem per- 
fectly fresh. I asked the w^oman I saw soaking 
them if they were good. A smile from ear to 
ear illumined her face ; she offered me some and 
then opened her capacious mouth into which she 
threw a handful which she crushed with evident 
delight. Though of an enquiring mind, I ab- 
stained heroicall}^ from accepting the proffered 
hospitality. Had the eggs been fried I doubt 
not they would have made a good dish. The 
dry ones were shriveled and as dead looking as 
the roe in a smoked herring, yet when soaked 
they seemed as plump and fresh as if just taken 
from the mother fish. 

GUM-CHEWING A^IONG THE NATIVES. 

When selling berries to the ship passengers 
the women are either all the while eating of 
their goods or are chewing some kind of gum, 
generally the latter. Why should not Alaska's 
400 chew gum as well as our own. One of their 
fashions is very grotesque. We saw several 
women with their faces, necks, arms and hands 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 1 29 

stained almost black. Whether this was done 
for ornamentation, or as a sort of mourning 
badge, I could not definitely learn. Both solu- 
tions were given us by people residing among 
them. If the latter, it furnished another evi- 
dence of Japanese origin. A Japanese married 
woman blackens her teeth, and plucks her eye 
brows and lashes to make herself unattractive, 
as a proof of her love for her lord. These 
women carry out the same idea when in sorrow. 
Their grief is certainly much more economical 
than in politer lands where, robes de deul are 
both nobby and costly. 

At each town visited by us lines of women 
with some men were crouched down on their 
haunches, with their wares for sale ; dressed 
skins, carved wood, spoons, totems, and uncouth 
images of animals ; baskets beautifully woven of 
a kind of grass, very close, very strong, and 
decorated in bold, natural colors. They have 
what so many untutored but somewhat self- 
cultured half savage people have, a thorough 
conception of harmony of color. At first, 
to our cultivated estheticism, the coloring 
used by them is too glaring, but when toned 
down by time, or when seen at a little distance, 
no civilized people can surpass them. 

The baskets made by the people of a sort of 
strong grass probably mixed with some kind of 



130 A SUMMER S OUTIXG. 

bark, are ver}^ strong and so closel}^ woven, that 
the}^ will hold water. They can be folded 
tighth^ without breaking the fiber. I had consid- 
erable difficult}^ in getting a native to part with an 
old one. It Avould seem the}' recognize the soft- 
ness lent b}^ age. I offered several women two 
or three times as much for old ones, which the^^ 
had in use, as they asked for new ones. The 
one I succeeded in getting was from a woman who 
had no new ones for sale. It probably had held 
rather unsavor}^ messes, but its coloring is ex- 
quisitely soft and mellow. A passenger asked 
what I wanted with the dirty thing. Its soft 
tone being pointed out, she spent over an hour 
going from shack to shack fruitlessly endeavor- 
ing to obtain one. 

The same difference is observable between old 
and new Turkish rugs. Their beauty is not in 
the texture or weight but in the harmou}' of 
color, which no European has yet been able to 
surpass, if equal. The high art of France has 
not yet learned to create in large ungraceful 
figures the result found in rugs laboriously 
made b}^ the half civilized people of Eastern 
Turkey and of the Caucasus. The French attain 
it onl}^ b}^ grouping small figures of graceful de- 
sign. The Thlinkets are the most numerous of 
the native tribes, and are the ones which so re- 
semble the Japanese. A Thlinket when pla34ng 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. I3I 

mercliant to the tourist visitors offers his wares 
with an utter indifference and apparently never 
drops a tittle from his first price. If you pur- 
chase he or she seems pleased ; if you decline his 
air is of one utterly indifferent. We saw a large 
number at work about the Treadwell mines in 
different capacities, and in drilling aud quarry- 
ing the quartz. They seem to work as well as 
the average white man. 

By the way, the Treadwell mine is an extraor- 
dinary thing. Gold-bearing quartz is quarried like 
common stone. The vein, if it can be so termed, 
is 500 feet wide, open upon the surface and extend- 
ing to an unknown depth. It is of low grade ore, 
yielding only from four to eight dollars per ton, but 
is soeasily reached and worked with such cheapness 
that many think it the most valuable mine in the 
world. The mine runs 240 stamps, being the 
largest number in existence under one roof. It 
is controlled by so close a corporation that the 
yield is never divulged and its value is a secret. 
It is said, however, that an offer of $15,000,000 
to $20,000,000 has been refused. Its machinery 
is almost if not entirely run by water power fur- 
nished by a mountain stream tumbling from a 
lofty height immediately behind and over the 
mine. It is on Douglas Island, which is separ- 
ated from the main land at Juneau by a channel 
about a mile in width. 



132 A summer's outing." 

Other paying mines are being worked about 
Juneau, and promising claims have been located 
in many parts of the Territory. The seal produce 
of the land is too well known to need any com- 
ment, but it will probably surprise the majority 
of our people when they learn that the salmon 
crop of last year was of about 750,000 cases. 
Each case I believe, holds two dozen cans. When 
one considers the fact that the waste of fish at 
the great packing canneries is enormous, not 
more than half of an eight pound sock-eye sal- 
mon—the best of all — being used, and then con- 
siders the number caught by the natives for 
themselves and for their dogs, we can easily 
marvel at the vast schools which frequent these 
Northern waters. The waste spoken of is not 
because more cannot be saved, but because the 
middle part of the fish cans best and is saved 
with a minimum of labor. The back with its 
fin is removed by one stroke of the knife, then 
the same is done with the belly. The head and 
tail is then cut so deep into the body that only 
four pounds of an eight-pounder is left. This 
is divided into four equal parts. One part is 
then rolled and pressed by the hand into a can. 
The cans are closed and placed in great vats, 
where they are boiled. When about done they 
are taken out and pricked to let the air out, and 
again soldered. They go again into vats to be 



NORTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. 1 33 

boiled an hour and a half. This long cooking in 
air-tight cans causes the bones to be absorbed 
without wasting the juices and flavor of the fish. 
When this is done, each can is again examined 
and any one at all puffed up is again pricked to 
let all air escape and is again boiled. They are 
then cooled for boxing. Some canneries on the 
Pacific pack from forty all the way up to a hun- 
dred thousand fish a day. 

I spoke of dogs. There are a great many in 
the Indian villages. They are all more or less 
mixed of Esquimaux breed. They exceed the 
number of* children, are all wolf-like, and are on 
the best of terms with the people. It is amusing 
to set one of them to barking, especially if the 
bark be of the howl kind, for immediately it is 
caught up by his nearest neighbor and carried 
on until every dog in the camp is squatting on 
his haunches and lifting his voice to its highest 
pitch. The medley of sounds, from the pup's 
quaver through the whole gamut of different 
ages to the sober howls of the grandfather, is 
very droll, especially when the hearer sees the 
performers in their dead earnestness. They lift 
their heads and look so solemn, and howl in so 
lugubrious a key, that one feels that in this 
dogish art at least they are unequaled by the 
canines of any other part of the world. 



LETTER VIL 

steaming up the ice-packed fiords and 
channels of the arctic country owned 
by uncle sam. salmon canneries. canoe 
building by natives. ascent of the 
" muir " glacier, 3 co feet above water, 
fantastic ice formations at takou. 
summer and winter climates. impudent 
crows and oratorical ravens. 

Steamer Queen, 
Gulf of Georgia, Aug. lo. 
The salmon canneries of Alaska are not all in 
tHe neighborhood of the towns at which the ex- 
cursion steamer calls, but are at or near every 
considerable stream which flows into the straits, 
channels and inlets. The instinct of the fish 
send them at regular seasons into fresh water, 
where and near which, they are caught in vast 
numbers. Other steamers, some of them carrying 
passengers and requiring a week longer to make 
the trip, call at stated times at several places, to 
which the Queen does not go, to take on and 
unload freight. The natives are the principal fish- 
ermen using, both nets and hooks from their trim 
canoes. These are dug out from a single log, 
some barely holding a man, others carrying with 
safet}^ fifty or more. A log of two feet diameter 
will make a canoe nearly twice as large at its 

134 



ALASKAN CANOES. 135 

waist. When dug out to a thin shell almost as 
light as birch bark, the frame is filled with water, 
into which hot stones are thrown until the 
wooden walls are thoroughly steamed, hot and 
pliable. Sticks of different lengths, the longest 
at the canoe waist, are then set into the frame, 
which is spread out into a fine, cutter-shaped 
keel. A high prow and somewhat raised stern 
are cut out of the log or set into it. Some of 
the crafts present finely modeled keels. The 
shell of a canoe holding over sixty people, is 
often less than a half inch thick, and so light 
that two people can easily pull it high on dry 
land. The native squats in the bottom of his 
canoe and paddles it with great speed. 

We saw a boat not twenty feet long, the whole 
filled to the top with light firewood. On this were 
perched two men, three women, a dog, a small 
tent, and the cooking utensils of the family. 
They were sailing from Juneau to another vil- 
lage several miles away. A native gets into his 
canoe as lightly and carefully as if he were 
treading on eggs. In this instance, the boat 
sank until its upper line was not four inches out 
of water. We expected to see it swamped, for 
there was a light wind and a few white caps. 
We watched it with our glasses until safely 
landed at a village several miles away. The 
natives, of villages quite distant from the towns 



136 A summer's outing. 

at which the steamers call, bring their wives, 
dogs, and household utensils, together with what 
they may have to sell in the curio line to these 
places on the day the steamers are due. They 
pitch their tents on the shore not far from the 
steamboat pier, draw their canoes upon the 
strand above high water mark, and seem as 
much at home as if regularly domiciled. They 
remain as long as they see a chance for trade 
and then fold their tents and silently seal 
away. They require only a few minutes to get 
themselves and their worldly possessions aboard 
their little dugouts. At Juneau there were sev- 
eral of these temporary inhabitants. They all 
embarked after sundown, and with the long twi- 
light were able to reach their permanent abodes 
before well-set dark. 

The people catch fish at or near their respec- 
tive villages. The canneries each have a small 
steambarge, which is sent to several villages 
daily to pick up the catch. In this w^ay the sal- 
mon are landed at the packing-places when per- 
fectly fresh. The Alaskan salmon is as a rule 
small, averaging only about six pounds, wdiile 
" sock eye" of the Frazer River run evenly at 
eight pounds, and the Columbia River furnishes 
an average of nearly twenty pounds. Large 
fish, however, were brought to our steward, also 
magnificent halibut, which the passengers 



A THRIFTY WOMAN. 1 37 

enjoyed greatly. One soon becomes satiated with 
salmon on the Pacific Coast. It is as thoroughly 
an every day food, as is the hog and hominy on 
a southern plantation. Except to the Indian, it 
does not seem to be as good for a steady diet as 
the southerner's homely fare. Several other 
varieties of salt water fish furnish a less surfeit- 
ing every day food than this famous beauty. 
We hailed with pleasure, the change to halibut 
given us by our steward when we reached 
Alaska. No where is this solid denizen of the 
sea, found in better kelter than up here. 

A PICTURE OF SITKA. 

Our ship on the excursion stops at Seattle and 
Port-Townsend, in Wasbiilgton ; Victoria and 
Nanaimo, on Vancouver's Island ; and at Fort 
Wrangle, Juneau, and Sitka, in Alaska ; at each 
long enough to afford passengers full time to 
satisfy themselves. Juneau is the largest place 
owing to the rich mines in the vicinity. All 
have large canneries near by, which employ 
natives, many of whom have acquired considera- 
ble property. A native woman, widow to a white 
trader, and her daughter were passengers from 
Juneau to Chilkat. She is a sort of Merchant, 
contintiing the business of her defunct husband. 
She bore herself most decorously in her half 
mourning, and seemed quite able to steer her 



138 A summer's outing. 

own bark through the remaining vo3'age of Hfe. 
She is reputed to be worth several thousand dol- 
lars, and manages her affairs shrew'dly. Her 
eligibilit}^ was suggested to the late friend of 
Persia's shah. His eyes rested more fondl}^ 
upon her plump daughter, who displa^-ed much 
agility and a trim ankle when she descended the 
gangway in a high sea out side of Chilkat. 

Sitka has one of the prettiest sites and harbors 
in the world, and its climate just now is simply 
delicious. It is built on slightly rising ground 
on a ba}^ running some miles from the sea, with 
beautiful little islands, clustered in large num- 
ber in front of the town. These lift with rounded 
rocky foundations naked and w^ater-washed at 
low tide, but are clothed in rich green shrubbery 
above high, water mark. The}^ would make an 
exquisite water park for a large cit}^ Over one 
edge of this park lifts a few miles away, j\Iount 
Edgecumbe, a perfect volcanic cone about 3,000 
feet high. Its lower two thirds are clothed in 
green. Its upper third, beneath its broad ex- 
tinct crater, is of rich red rock. Long points of 
the red run dowm into the green, while points of 
the green run up into the red. It reminds one 
much, of famous Fuji-3^ama in Japan. The god- 
mountain of Japan is over four times as high, 
but Edgecumbe is seen so close tbat the contrast 
does not entirely belittle it. 



FINE SCENERY. 139 

Around and behind Sitka are lofty foot 
hills clothed in forests, making a perfect amphi- 
theater, while behind them rear pointed, rocky 
mountains more or less snow flecked. The 
town is on the great island of Baranoff, which 
- is a mass of pinnacled mountains, the northern 
slopes of which are always w^hite with sheets 
of snow. When we sailed, a few days before, 
northward through Prince Frederick Sound, 
these mountains formed a wonderfully beau- 
tiful background. Prince Frederick Sound is 
about twenty by thirty odd miles. All around 
it lie grand mountains of exceeding ruggedness 
on their highest peaks, but green below, with 
stripes, bands and patches of white. Through a 
break to the south the sound stretches some 
miles further, backed by the Baranoff range, 
rising in innumerable sharply pointed pinnacles, 
and about their shoulders as purely white as 
loftiest Alpine heights. All the mountains are 
comparatively uncovered when seen on their 
southern, ^vestern, and eastern exposures, while 
those seen from the north although not more 
lofty, are clothed in blankets of white, as if to 
protect them from the northern blasts. 

The entire Alaskan trip presents a constant 
succession of gorgeous scenery, and if the 
weather be fine, it is worth the time taken and the 
cost in money to one who loves the picturesque 



140 A summer's outing. 

and enjoys the rugged grandeur of nature, 
even if they were no grand glaciers. The time is 
not far distant, when commodious hotels will be 
maintained in these northern possessions as 
summer resorts. Many people will then spend 
weeks in them, and with the aid of small excur- 
sion barges will find health and delights. 

An intelligent man who has resided for several 
years in Sitka, assured me he much preferred 
its winter climate to that of southern Ohio, 
where he had grown up to mature manhood. 
The average winter climate is rather milder than 
that of Washington, but with no extreme of 
cold. The frequent rainy days during the sum- 
mer are a great draw back to the pleasure of ex- 
cursion tourists. The chances are decidedly 
that he will find everything wet when he ar- 
rives. Our party was one of the lucky ones. 
The air was clear and balmy. The sun made a 
parasol agreeable to the ladies. I lolled for an 
hour on the stoop of a deserted house, with my 
head in shade, but my body and lower limbs 
warmed by a delicious sun bath, while my eyes 
feasted upon the glorious picture spread before 
me of mountain peak and green slopes, and 
gently rippling w.ater as the tide slowly crept 
up the soft beach of the little bay behind the town. 

Except when sailing across four entrances or 
broad straits running out to the open sea, the 



MIRROR-LIKE SEA. I4I 

entire voyage to and from x\laska, iisualh'is and 
alwa^^s may be through, straits, canals, and fiords 
so thoroughly protected from the ocean's angry 
waters that the smallest steamer can hardh^ feel 
a toss. On ttis excursion of ours, the brin}^ 
depths below us were often as smooth as glass, 
reflecting the mountains, as from a mirror. As 
the swell from our steamer would roll off in 
smooth, rounded and diverging lines, the}- would 
weave fantastic forms, upon their mirror like 
surface, of green forest, rugged rocks, or snow 
caps. Towards the land be3^ond the effect of the 
swell, the mountains would often be so perfect!}^ 
delineated upon the mirror, that a photograph of 
them would show them as distinctly below as 
above. The picture could be turned upside 
down with but little detriment to the view. Xear 
the steamer the rounded crest of the swell would 
reflect long weird lines of forest, which would 
spread out behind us as the swell sank to a lower 
level. 

At night millions of small iish, probabl}^ 
herrings, would be disturbed in their schools, 
and fluttering and hurr^dng from the ship's 
prow would make the water blaze in brilliant 
phosphorescence. Xow and then a large fish 
would dart through these schools, leaving behind 
him a bright wake of flame. As he dashed 
through them, the herrings would scatter their 



142 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

flame work into myriads of sparkling diamonds. 
When our ship would push into the school, the 
alarm seemed to be given to quite a distance 
in the mass. The dense pack of little fellows 
forward the ship's bow, would break the sea into 
chaotic burning mass, as they sped in haste be- 
fore the great monster chasing them. The line 
to the right and left then bent aft, weaving 
the sea into a waving network of fire. Farther 
off the brightness was toned down to a glis- 
tening shimmer, and then was lost in the 
distance. The schools we saw were moving in 
great lines in the direction we were sailing. 
They v/ere composed of millions of little finny 
flutterers. 

PANORAMA ON LAND AND WATER. 

Frequently as we sailed over the placid sea, 
little diving ducks would flap the waters in a 
race from the ship's hull, and w^hen a hundred 
feet ofl" would dive for a score or more feet, per- 
fectly satisfied that by their dive the}'^ had hidden 
their tracks from the mighty monster. Droves 
of porpoise rolled about us, and now and 
then one would race with us for a mile or so and 
seem really to understand and enjoy the contest. 
Asiatic crows cawed around us when we were 
ashore most familiarly, and with the cute impu- 
dence, so characteristic of his brethern in Eastern 



CROWS AND RAVENS. I43 

Asia. When we landed at I\Inir Glacier, a 
young school marm and I wandered along the 
shore then bare from the receding tide, np to the 
ic}' precipice. A conple of crows espied ns and 
flew about us cawing, and finalh^ perched on a 
rock close b}-. I told the fair one that these 
birds instinctiveh^ saw that we were to be caught 
b}^ the incoming tide or under an ice fall, and 
were awaiting a feast. Their cawing was so con- 
stant, that she become superstitious, and de- 
clared she could not stand it. I had to sh}^ a 
pebble at them to allay her timidity. The crow 
is a familiar bird up here, but the raven is an 
Alaskan institution. If I be not mistaken he is 
held by the natives in a sort of veneration. He 
is twice or more as large as our crow ; has a 
huge roman nosed beak, which occasionally^ 
snaps with a report nearly as loud as the snaps 
of a pelican's bill. His coat is of shin}^ 
burnished bottle green black, and his eye has 
an expression queerh^ mixed of vacuous imbecil- 
ity, and cunning impudent rascalit3\ He is a 
genuine stump speaker, and as fond of his own 
orations as a famous eastern after dinner talker 
is of his pretty speeches. 

When Ave strolled in the deep shade of the 
dense forest behind Sitka, some of these impu- 
dent fellows settled in adjoining trees and held 
dialogues and debates, possibl}' upon our human 



144 A summer's outing. 

characteristics. They would harange and then 
seem to crack coarse jokes, when one of them 
would almost laugh in low gutturals, not unlike 
the gurgling of water running from a two gal- 
lon jug. A wag among us declared they were 
making ward stump-speeches, and was willing to 
wager that if ravens language could be under- 
stood, we should find that some of the jokes 
were utterly unfit for polite ears. Those we saw 
were rather jolly good fellows, and were not of 
the family of which one appeared to Edgar Poe 
in his hashish dreams. 

I said that the simple, beautiful scener}^ pre- 
sented by the Alaskan excursion, well repa3^s 
the loss of time and mone}^ expended upon it. 
Many of the mountain-flanked channels are 
wonderfully beautiful. The Linn or Chilkat 
Canal is surpassed b}^ nothing of the sort we 
have ever seen. It is about four miles wide and 
probabl}^ 30 long. On either side tower moun- 
tains, say 3,000 feet high, rising from the water 
like great receding buttresses, clothed thickly 
in forest below, with scattered copses toward the 
upper slopes, and flecked with openings of low 
shrubbery in pale green, artistically contrasting 
with the dark tone of firs and spruce. All are 
topped by rocks, those near us gra}^, and the 
most distant ones of an undertone of purple, 
while in the far distance, the mountains on 



TAKOU GLACIERS. I45 

either shore become first bliie-gra}^, and then 
blend off into sweet opalescent tints. Over and 
above all, towered at no great distance mighty 
snow fields and glaciered heights. Crillon, Fair- 
weather, and La Peronse to the west cnt the 
clear blue sky with their points 15,000 and 
nearly 16,000 feet above ns ; mantels of clouds 
here and there fell about their titantic shoulders, 
and light veils of mist wound and unwound 
about them just under their snowy pinnacles. 
Into this glorious fiord we steamed to its head at 
Chilkat, and then back to enter Glacier Bay, the 
acme of Alaska's wonderful exhibitions. 

Fully nine Alaskan tourists out of ten go 
for its glaciers, which are seen in a magnitude 
and grandeur inducing one to pass as scarcely 
worthy of notice, the best of any other countr^^ 
which is possible of approach. Thc}^ are seen 
in icy hardness on distant summits shortly after 
passing the boundary of British Columbia. 
They increase in frequency as one goes further 
north, until on a clear and cloudless day one is 
scarcely ever out of sight. The first visited by us 
was that at the head of Takou inlet south of 
Juneau. It is comparatively small, less than a 
mile w^ide at its foot, but running back several 
miles. Its foot presents a perpendicular wall of 
ice 150 to 200 feet high, rising out of water sev- 
eral hundred feet deep. Its face is irregular; 



146 A summer's outing. 

here supported by 103^ buttresses, and there sink- 
ing back into icy recesses ; now with irregular 
pilasters and projections of soft snowy appear- 
ance and then with broken columns, recesses, 
and caves of every tint of blue from the flitting 
opalescent to transparent ultra-marine and deep 
indigo. 

FANTASTIC GRANDEUR OF THE GLACIERS. 

Now is seen a mass of closely welded cr3^stals 
of diamond whiteness glistening under the kiss 
of the sun, like monster piles of precious gems; 
then a huge broken and fissured wall compactly 
studded with turquoise and ameth^^sts and gems 
so green as to be almost emeralds forming the icy 
cliffs. Loud reports as of rifle guns would fill 
the ear, coming from the cracking behind of the 
solid moving mass as it pushed onward in its 
descent. Hark ! A rattle of musketr^' ! You 
look and see a mere hat full of snowy ice tumb- 
ling from the upper edge. As it falls it becomes 
a cart full, a house full, and then with a report 
as loud as that of a heav}^ cannon^ a section of 
the wall's face separates from the mass behind 
and tumbles into the deep water with a splash 
which scatters spray one or two hundred feet 
around, and the air is filled as with the bellow- 
ing of thunder echoed from projecting ice walls 
and from the lofty mountains hemming in the 



DIVJXG ICE. 147 

narrow inlet. The fallen mass disappears below 
the surface. But look ! See that monster lifting 
from the water a half hundred feet away from 
where the tumbling ice fell ! It is a dome-like 
pinnacle of ice. Up it rises slowl}^, revealing 
the most exquisite tints as its shoulders broaden ; 
ten feet, twenty, fifty, aye, nearly a hundred 
feet ! For a moment it poses a solidified mass 
of ultramarine. Sparkling waters pour in cas- 
cades from its uplifted dome. But see ! It leans 
a little ; it leans a little more ; and tumbles with 
a might}^ noise and sends ge^^sers up to the 
brink of the ic}^ precipice and wide around for 
several hundred feet. As its upper member or 
crest topples over, a huge section many times 
more bulky than the part we had seen above 
water, lifts, and then lies stretched three or 
more hundred feet, and exposed above the sur- 
face nearl}^ thirty feet. The huge mass of pos- 
sibly a hundred thousand tons weight came only 
to a small extent from the icy wall standing be- 
fore and above us ; but the fissure above ex- 
tended — three or more hundred feet down into 
the glacier below water, and rested on the 
ground. For one end was covered with mud 
and for many feet was deeply stained. 

An officer of the ship declared this was the 
finest exhibition of the sort he had ever seen, 
and that the iceberg thus made and now slowly 



14S A summer's outing. 

floated out by the receding tide weighed far more 
than a hundred thousand tons. Our ship was 
lying with its bow toward the glacier not a 
thousand feet away. The vessel rocked and 
reeled from stem to stern as the great waves 
made by the glacier avalanche rolled under her. 
We lay there two hours listening to constant re- 
ports and seeing a succession of ice slides. 
While so resting for the enjoyment of passen- 
gers, the captain was laying in ice enough for 
his next round trip. Icebergs of all sizes, from 
those weighing only a ton up to others half as 
big as the steamer, were floating all about us. 
Some of crystal whiteness and as clear as the 
lens of a telescope. Others were of every tone of 
blue, deepening sometimes into translucent 
olive. The most of the bergs were of delicious 
purity, but a few were full of mud brought from 
the bed hundreds of feet under water. In some 
were seen good sized cobble stones ; in one a 
boulder weighing probabl}^ a quarter of a ton. 
Sailors in a boat picked from these masses 
chunks of perfect clearness, passed grappling 
ropes under them, and then hoisted them by the 
steam derrick upon the main deck. Sometimes 
the piece seen above water was not larger than 
a barrel, but when lifted into full view it 
weighed one, two or more tons. For every foot 
of ice seen in an iceberg above w^ater eight lie 



OUR ICE SUPPLY. 149 

below. Thus when a berg floated close to lis 
showing thirty feet above water, it had, if of 
even form, 240 feet below. 

CLIMBING THE FAMOUS " MUIR." 

Some of the passengers felt uneasy, fearing 
another might}^ tumble might occur immediately 
in front of us, and that the mass might shoot 
outward below water, and might come up be- 
neath, or uncomfortably close to us. The cap- 
tain, however, stood upon the bridge ready to 
send his ship rapidly backward should anything 
look untoward. The engines were kept in 
gentle motion holding our bow steadil}^ toward 
the glacier precipice. The captain, by the wa}^, 
thinks the Takou the most interesting of the ap- 
proachable glaciers. The ice gathered was of 
great solidity. It did not break under an ice pick 
in straight cleavage, but irregularl}^, showing its 
peculiar characteristic of being formed, not from 
water simply freezing, but from snow compacted 
under irresistible pressure. Two chunks of per- 
haps each two tons weight lay between decks 
supplying the entire ship's wants for four or five 
days. It may have been imagination, but I 
thought this ice more agreeable for eating than 
that made by ordinary' process. It was more fri- 
able and broke and crumbled in the mouth in 
shorter pieces and not in long spiculae as ordi- 
nary ice does. 



150 A summer's outing. 

We passed on our run close to several other 
huge glaciers, some of them running quite down 
to the water; among them the "Stephens" 
which though very large, reaches the sea in a 
slope and not with a perpendicular precipice. 
We, however, stopped only at the celebrated 
" Muir." We lay in front of it from 6 a. m. to 
2 p. m. — a half hour in rather dangerous prox- 
imity, and then anchored a mile off for pas- 
sengers to land and climb its banks. The Muir 
presents a precipice to the head of the inlet 
nearly 300 feet high and over a mile long. Two 
years ago it bent outward with a very decided 
convex front ; last year it was nearly straight. 
Now it is a very open horseshoe. We took 
soundings when the Queen lay a thousand feet 
from the front and found under us 720 feet. It 
possibly shallows considerably close to the wall, 
say to 400 feet. The glacier is certainly over 
200 feet high ; this makes, with what is under 
water, 600 feet. But give it the low estimate of 
an average across the inlet of 400 feet. It 
moves steadily downward forty feet a day, and 
gradually recedes. Thus it will be found that 
it tumbles into the sea a mass of ice, 40x5 2 Sox 
400 feet, or of at least 84,000,000 cubic feet a 
day. 

After wandering for several hours over the 
surface of the glacier, along a sort of granite 



CLIMBING A GLACIER. 151 

road way varying in depth, from a few inches up 
to very many feet thick lying upon it ; among 
blocks of granite weighing tons brought down 
upon the solid frozen river ; across narrow cre- 
vices, into whose depths we could look a hun- 
dred feet down, into pure ice of all tints of blue 
from the pearl blue of a southern sky to ultra- 
marine and indigo — tints so beautiful that one 
involuntarily groaned in pleased admiration ; 
along chasms where our iron-pointed alpenstocks 
were necessary to prevent a slip, which would 
have sent us down into glacial graves ; looking 
over pinnacles, domes and valleys of ice in con- 
fused profusion; over grotesque forms, over which 
no one person could safely go, but a dozen 
attached to each other by ropes, with shoes iron- 
nailed, might with hazard venture. Then up 
and before us spread the mighty glacier, 25 
miles by 30, fed by many smaller ones. Morains 
of rock lifted above the surface in long even 
lines running back for miles, showing the edge 
of each of the frozen rivers, which have united to 
make the mighty single one. 

The theory explaining the medial moraines of 
glaciers, is that two or more glaciers come down 
the gorges and upper valle^^s of the mountain. 
Each of these gather up broken rock and moun- 
tain debris on their two sides. When two such 
glaciers meet and run into and form one, then 



152 A summer's outing. 

the inner lateral moraines unite and are borne 
along by the enlarged glacier. As it flows these 
two morains, now become " medial," are appar- 
ently pressed upward to and upon the surface. 
This, however, is probably only apparent, for the 
ice melting under the summer sun's heat, simply 
leaves the rock debris on the surface. 

The Muir is the result of several upper feed- 
ing glaciers. Each two uniting formed from 
their inner lateral moraines, one medial. Sev- 
eral medial ones are observable on the surface 
of the great glacier, some of them uniting lower 
down, Avhen the bed of the icy stream becomes 
contracted — where the valley becomes narrow. 
Several medial moraines retain their individual 
line until the great precipice is reached. The 
mass of the debris forming a moraine is of com- 
paratively small broken granite ; not broken and 
rounded by glacial action, but simply irregular 
pieces thrown off from granite precipices high 
in the mountains b}^ frost forces. Now and then 
a few rounded pebbles, and small boulders are 
seen, worn on the under surface of upper glacier 
streams. Quite a number of very large masses 
of granite are being borne down by the Muir 
moraines. One I estimated to weigh several 
tons. Its cleavage sides and edges were fresh 
and sharp as if it were just broken from its par- 
ent rock. 



STRANDED ICEBERGS. 153 

The medial morains on some of the glaciers 
seen at a distance, have a singular effect. They 
can be seen in long apparently parallel lines and 
seemingly close enough together, to be the walls 
of a long smooth road. A wag declared that one 
of them was the road from an Indian village to 
the little red school house in an upper valley. 

After exploring the surface of the glacier, we 
found that the tide having reached its ebb, we 
could approach the foot of the ice-precipice. 
Three of us had approached it somewhat nearly 
before when the tide was but half out. We 
walked up the shingly shore through stranded 
icebergs of all sizes, and hundreds in number. 
Some were not larger than a barrel, others 
larger than a railroad car, and of all intermediate 
sizes. Now we threaded our way through a cor- 
don of huge blocks as clear as crystal, from 
which we chipped with the spikes of our alpen- 
stocks, chunks delicious to eat. Then we were 
among others of various tints, colored by the 
earthy matter caught by them when flowing 
near to or upon the valley bed. One mass 
weighing probably a thousand tons was resting 
upon a point so small as to be a mere pivot. I 
cut from it a smooth rounded cobble stone for a 
paper weighty and was glad w^hen my task was 
finished, for I was somewhat uneasy lest the 
slight hammering might topple over the bulky 
mass. 



154 A summer's outing. 

We reached the foot of the glacier. Here the 
picture was wonderfully fine. The ice-precipice 
from which so many newly broken bergs had 
tumbled, was far more beautiful than when seen 
from several hundred ^^ards away. We looked 
into grottoes many yards recessed into the frozen 
cliff. Here in one was every shade of blue ; all 
tints of green were resplendent in another ; and 
then the sun would discolor these shades, and 
weave them into the sweet tones which paint an 
opal's cheek. Now an upper member of a newly 
broken recess under the sun rays sparkled as 
with million diamonds, and then another looked 
like a mass of crystalized olive tints. From out 
of a deep grotto at the base of the cliff flowed a 
strong river, which had been pent within its ic}^ 
house, and now reaching the free air bounded 
and rushed to join the mighty sea. 

Since our arrival in the morning the tide had 
fallen fully twenty feet, taking awa}^ considerable 
support from the hanging mass, so that the fall 
of icebergs was almost continuous. The thun- 
der while so close to a tumbling mass was ter- 
rific and sublime. The inlet was full of bergs, 
so that the ship in turning out had to pick its 
way carefully. How exquisitely beautiful they 
were as they glistened in the sun's rays, dis- 
playing their iridescent crystals! As we steamed 
out of the inlet among a scattered ice floe we 



MONSTER ICEBERGS. 155 

thought we had seen all that a grand glacier 
could present. Imagine our surprise when we 
had gone about ten miles to find ourselves at the 
entrance to another inlet which was packed al- 
most solidly with icebergs. With our glasses we 
could see the huge "Pacific glacier," about thirty 
miles away, with a precipice of ice 600 to 800 
feet high and fivQ miles long. Although it was 
quite three times as far from us as the "]\Iuir", 
yet its icy front showed to us higher out of 
water. The inlet running up to it was literally 
packed with ice, into which no steamer, unless 
armored for Arctic seas, would dare to venture. 
A passenger latel}^ taken on, who had spent a 
season prospecting in this immediate neighbor- 
hood, assured us that the fall of ice from this 
glacier was absolutely continuous, and that 
masses would tumble a half mile long. He had 
seen one floating three miles long. He admitted 
he had no means of measuring it, and gave us 
the result of a rather hasty guess. He said 
it stranded at each low tide, but would be lifted 
at each flood and was by degrees broken up suf- 
ficientl}^ to get out of the inlet. " Wh}^," said 
this passenger, " the ]\Iuir is a baby by the side 
of the Pacific. For every iceberg coming 
from the one five hundred come from the other." 
The statement was credible, for while just above 
this inlet the strait had only scattered bergs, 



156 A summer's outing. 

below it was almost a pack of ice. The majority 
of the icebergs, which had fallen from the Muir, 
were melted away before reaching the mouth of 
the Pacific inlet. Looking up this, the icebergs 
seemed almost in solid mass; of all sizes from a 
few feet broad, to others covering a quarter of 
an acre ; and from a few feet in height up to 
twenty, thirty and forty. Out side of the inlet 
and below its mouth, monster masses were all 
about us, some of them hundreds of feet across 
and several fully fifty feet above water. 

The George W. Elder, which sailed from Ta- 
coma the night we did, reached the Muir while 
we were there and sailed out with us. We thus 
had a genuine Arctic picture. The two ships 
picked their way slowly, less than a mile apart. 
The Elder was frequently hidden from us en- 
tirely by mighty icebergs. For miles we stole 
our way through the floe, delighted with the 
novel scene. Two fine ships in this icy sea gave 
us a realization of the pictures we had seen of 
the Thetis and her comrade in the frozen pack 
beyond the Arctic circle. Mighty Crillon, Fair- 
weather, and La Perouse the sources of the great 
fields of frozen snow around us here pour their 
icy floods into the sea. The last is 14,000 feet 
high ; the other respectively 15,900 and 15,500. 
They present the same amount of white above 
the snow line as does Mount Everest. That is 



IMMENSE GLACIERS. 1 57 

about 12,000 feet on its southern slope. In 
Alaska the snow line toward the south is 
reached at 3,000 feet, while in the Himalayas the 
tree line mounts to 17,000 feet. 

When I looked upon these great icebergs 
which had tumbled from the huge ice-cliffs we 
had lately seen, and then recalled the fact that 
they were but snow balls when compared to 
some which have been sighted in far northern 
and in southern seas — some which were from 
two to three miles square and seven to eight 
hundred feet high above water, and nearly if not 
quite a mile deep below the water line — when I 
recalled these facts I was lost in trying to specu- 
late upon the vastness-of the glaciers existing in 
Greenland and in Antarctic continents. Judg- 
ing from what we know of those about us^ we 
have to suppose there are glaciers in the world 
two or three aye six or seven miles high above 
water, sinking miles below the surface, and 
stretching in awful grandeur their frozen cliffs 
for many miles along the sea. 

The Pacific glacier is from six to eight hun- 
dred feet high at its brink, and five miles long, 
yet among the bergs we saw — and the captain 
said he had never seen a finer display in the lo- 
cality — there were none which were a half acre 
in size and none over sixty feet high. Icebergs 
are said to have been seen covering an area of 



ic8 A summer's outing. 

from 2,500 to 4,000 acres, and twelve times as 
high as the highest about us. The glacier from 
which such monsters fell, was to the '' Muir " as 
Niagara is to a mill dam. Are the mighty snow 
and ice mountains of the far south growing, or 
are they melting and breaking away from their 
moorings? If growing, when will they tumble 
through the crust of the earth, and send a raging 
sea over the habitable part of the globe? A guar- 
anteed ticket for a berth in the coming Noah's 
ark may be a handy thing to have about the 
house. With one, the possessor could be quite 
content to let the other fellow do the swimming. 

What a grand mind picture is presented to us, 
when we realize that glaciers once covered the 
northern half of this continent — glaciers whose 
sources were about Baf&ns Bay and within the 
Arctic circle, and whose feet stretched from the 
iVlleghanies to the Rocky mountains — from 
Pennsylvania to Colorado ! glaciers so vast that 
they built up moraines over a thousand feet deep! 
It is these thoughts which show us man's little- 
ness and his vanit}^ in boasting himself fashioned 
in God's image. 

A good clerg3^man we met in the National 
Park, in all seriousness expressed a fear that the 
enormous sk}^ scrapers our people are erecting 
in Chicago might destroy the equilibrium of the 
earth, and cause it to oscillate eccentricaly upon 



A STIFF PARTY. 1 59 

its axis. A conscientious Chicagoan informed 
his reverence, that we were building our city of 
such weight that it would counterbalance the 
undue growth of ice mountains about the south- 
ern pole. 

CLIMATE OF THE FROZEN' REGION. 

We have a pleasant company aboard — several 
being from Chicago. There is less of stiffness 
than is general!}^ found on ocean steamers. 
There is an amusing part}' of over twenty from 
the city of brotherh^ love. They are all nice — 
ver\' nice, and evidenth' have made a vow to hold 
themselves aloof from all others. They sit on 
deck in rows four deep, and follow the lead of 
one lad}' as a sort of bell-wether. AVhen she 
smiles all laugh ; when she feels a cold in her 
head all sneeze. 

Perhaps I should say something further about 
the climate of our frozen territor}'. Few things 
are less understood. The Sitka winters are not 
unlike those of Norfolk, \^a., rarely getting 
much below freezing. The nights there are very 
long, as the days are in summer. The sun was 
hot while we were there, but the shades were de- 
licious. Three blankets were quite comfortable 
at night. In the straits and inlets the weather 
is not quite so mild as on the open seashore, but 
nowhere are there severe winters until the coast 



i6o A summer's outing. 

mountain range is crossed. There the sun in the 
summer days is piercing hot and mosquitoes are 
so thick that the}^ are almost unbearable. There 
the long winters lock everything up in thick 
ribbed ice. 

We know that nothing can be more delight- 
ful than what we found for summer. How- 
ever, we have been fortunate. The rainfall 
is great and rains and fogs frequent. We have 
escaped both. Warm clothing, umbrellas, water- 
proofs, and water-tight shoes are recommended 
by those who advise how to go to Alaska. We 
have needed neither except the slices when 
climbing the glacier. We have worn overcoats 
aboard ship when the wind was against us, for 
a slight breeze and the wind made b\^ the speed 
of the ship causes a decided chilliness when on 
deck. When the ship is lying still we have re- 
quired no extra clothing. 

We expect to reach Nanaimo earh' to-morrow 
morning where the ship will coal. I hope we 
will be in earh^ enough for m^^self and daughter 
to catch the little steamer running to A'ancouver. 

Before closing, however, permit me to give 
one of the most valuable points in the art of 
traveling. When 3^ou leave home drop its cares 
entirel}^ and trustfull3\ Let your friends write 
nothing about 3'our business unless it be such as 
they know should liurr}- 3'ou back and for that 



GOOD ADVICE. l6l 

intended. Look on the bright side of everything 
before A^on, and do not complain because you 
have not the comforts of your home. Profitable 
travel is often laborious, and like all well ap- 
plied labor, pa^'s. As a young man I spent t^vo 
years abroad and heard not a word as to ni}' affairs. 
Since then I have made three trips to Europe 
and a long one around the world. Xot a word 
on either of them did I hear of my business. 
Once a month during a Globe Circuit we received 
a cablegram telling us of the health of the loved 
ones at home. 

To this policy I have ascribed the happiness 
and much of the benefits recei^'ed. People we 
met in various quarters of the world looked 
regularly for and got advices on their affairs 
and were often uneas}' and miserable, but 
were powerless to correct auA'thing going wrong. 
Passengers on this ship are fretting about letters 
the}^ expect to get at \^ictoria. I have heard 
nothing for a month and expect nothing until I 
wire home. If one keeps himself hopeful he 
can adopt as his traveling motto, " Xo news is 
good news." Try this and you will confess you 
owe me a eood fee for sound advice. 



LETTER VIII. 

vancouver. 

a run over the canadian pacific. mag- 
nificent scenery met with from the 
start. a glorious ride. eraser river 
glutted with salmon. a never-tiring 
view from glacier house, four thousand 
feet above the sea. rugged, precipitous 
grandeur of the selkirks and rockies, 
natural beauties of banff. reflections 
at the "soo." 

Canadian Pacific Steamer Alberta, 
AT Sault Ste. Marie, Aug. 23, '90. 

Three years ago I wrote quite largely on a 
trip over the Canadian Pacific Railway, running 
from east to west. Perhaps by now writing of it 
beginning at the western terminus, an appear- 
ance of plagiarism upon myself may be avoided. 
It is so grand a road, however, and the magnifi- 
cence and variety of scenery offered by it to the 
traveler are so great, that considerable repetition 
may be permissible, especially as the probabili- 
ties are that only a few ever read or now remem- 
bers what I said before. 

My Alaskan letter was ended at Nanaimo. A 
sail of three hours on a little steamer owned in 
New Zealand and lately brought from Bombay 
brought us to Vancouver. It seemed some- 

162 



WRECK OF THE BEAVER. 1 63 

what singular that we should be voyaging on a 
short local run in North-west America on a small 
steamer owned and lately doing service in a land 
so far away, and that land, too, one which we are 
prone to regard as our ultima thule, whose in- 
habitants are but one degree removed from the 
ragged edge of savagery. The world has so rap- 
idly progressed since many of us studied geogra- 
phy, that we have scarcely been able to keep 
pace with its strides. We have to pause and 
think to be able to realize that New Zealand is 
no longer the land of savages, but is populated 
by a highly cultivated and energetic people, and 
abounds in splendid cities. 

Before reaching Vancouver we saw high on 
the rocks the hull of the old steamer " Beaver". 
It was the first steamer to cross the broad Pacific 
brought here long ago by the Hudson Bay com- 
pany from Bombay. It was wrecked only last 
year, but is already in this humid climate green 
with moss and ocean weed. 

Vancouver has grown marvelously. Five years 
since its site was covered by a forest of enormous 
cedars and firs. Three years ago when I visited 
there, it had only seven or eight hundred popu- 
lation. Now it boasts having about 15,000. It 
has well graded streets, a few of them paved and 
several well planked; fine water brought in from 
a distance ; blocks of handsome stone houses 



164 A summer's outing. 

and office buildings ; commodious and elegant 
hotels, and many handsome residences. If I be 
not mistaken I suggested it three years ago as 
a good place for safe speculation. Had it not 
been for the long voyage then before me I should 
have dropped a thousand or two into its lots, 
and would have been considerably richer by the 
venture. 

High mountains of picturesque contours al- 
most surround the city. It is a sad fact that at 
this season of the year a dense shroud of smoke 
usually envelopes the bulk of the uplands. 
Fortunately a copious rain cleared up the at- 
mosphere just before our arrival. We passed 
through the town three years ago twice, and af- 
terwards lay at its pier three days, while our 
ship was getting ready to sail for Japan ; and all 
the while supposed the place was a great forest 
plain, until the morning of our departure, when 
a rain washed down the smoke and revealed 
magnificent mountain sceneiy close about us. 

To one taking the train at Vancouver for the 
East, fine scenery faces him as he emerges from 
the station and then continues to greet the eye, 
varying and growing for the next 600 miles, 
never once tame, often beautiful or grand and 
sublime, and frequently terrible. It changes 
rapidly and as unexpectedly as the pictures 
presented by a revolving kaleidoscope. Lofty 



FRASER RIVER. 165 

mountains, lifted up in rounded forms of granite, 
gneiss and other igneous rocks, massive and 
grand, like mighty boulders welded together, 
with monster trees in the valley below, and tall 
and straight ones high above wherever a ledge 
or a fissure affords their hardy roots chance to 
take hold, flank the road for the first ninety 
miles. On the north side of the Frazer River, 
whose broad white stream is soon reached, and 
which for the first 90 miles runs from East to 
West, these mountains arise immediately from 
the road. Across the river to the south more or 
less removed, from one to several miles, they 
show themselves in all their solid grandeur. 

Rounded boulder shaped mountains of granite 
or igneous rocks are to me far more impressive 
than much taller ones of other formations. One 
feels that they are solid, and are welded to the 
central foundations of earth ; that they were the 
offsprings of primal overpowering heat, while 
the others are made up of tiny particles of dis- 
integrated igneous stone, loosely thrown together 
by glacial moraines or dropped at ocean's bot- 
tom, and after eons of time compressed into 
hardness. Their walls were uplifted by the pres- 
sure from below of belching granite, or were 
crumbled together by the cramped earth, and 
their points, pinnacles, and needless were fash- 
ioned by rains and slow chemical processes. 



1 66 A summer's outing. 

They are the offspring of other than their own 
power and are shaped by puny causes acting 
through untold ages. The rounded granite moun- 
tains, however, lifted themselves and rushed 
forth from the seat of earth's central fires, 
moved by their own inherent forces. 

One feels that mountains of secondary rocks are 
a mass of tiny things thrown aloft as the creation 
of other than their own powers. They may tower 
far above the snow line, and may pierce the vaulted 
sky with their sharp needles and tooth like pin- 
nacles in the silent regions of eternal ice ; but 
we know that their loftiest horns once lay be- 
neath the ocean's wave, and after being hoisted 
as an impotent mass, have been cut and fash- 
ioned into sharpness by the gnawing tooth of 
frost. We know that they were borne up upon 
the breast of boiling, seething primitive rocks, 
and that they now rest upon the shoulders of 
granite titans. We know that they are crumb- 
ling day by day, and are being borne away upon 
pigmy streams into ocean depths. They are 
perishable and are perishing. 

But yonder rounded form whose smooth head 
barely reaches the clouds, has its foundations 
welded by inconceivably fierce fires ; fires kin- 
dled when this earth was rounded by the will of 
God from a formless void — welded to the very 
base and heart of the globe. It rose upon the 



A GRAND CANYON. 167 

crest of a molten sea, rending and tearing away 
everything its way, and now in adamantine cold- 
ness, seems the fit emblem of eternal duration. 

One may be terrified by the pinnacled mon- 
ster, but I am awed by the rounded giant. 

The Canadian Pacific road furnishes observation 
cars through its grand mountain scenery, from 
a point some sixty miles from Vancouver to and 
into the plains east of the Rockies or for six 
hundred miles. This thoughtful provision 
should be imitated by all railroads traversing 
fine scenery. 

A GRAND CANYON. 

About ninety miles from Vancouver the milky 
Fraser rushes from the canyon which has held 
it in a close embrace for a hundred miles ; from 
a chasm where the mountains have been split 
asunder, and now tower two or more thousand 
feet high, their feet washed in the turbulent 
stream, their heads cutting the sky in pictur- 
esque lines. The mountains along the canyon 
are all of metamorphic rock, splintered and 
shivered by too rapid cooling. In the course of 
some millions of yeais they have been washed 
down, so that what were once perpendicular 
walls have become precipitous heights, with 
every ledge and projection and all slopes which 
can hold soil, covered by dark green conifirae, 



i68 A summer's outing. 

and now and then by light green patches of de- 
ciduous shrubbery and small hardwood trees. 
Down toward the water the rocks are harder, 
and through it the river cuts its way between 
walls fiom fifty to one or more hundred feet 
high. These walls have defied the flood, and 
the river bends and winds through narrow fis- 
sures fifty to eighty feet wide, along which 
the white fluid rushes, almost with cascade force. 
Many of the projecting points and buttresses 
are grotesque and picturesque in the extreme. 

For many miles along the canyon an old 
government stage road hangs on escarped walls 
or dips down to the waters. At one point, 
at a height of a thousand feet, it almost hangs 
over the gorge, serving now but one purpose, to 
make lady tourists exclaim upon the cruelty of 
making even gold seekers so risk themselves as 
did the passengers of stage coaches a score or so 
years ago. I said the old road almost hangs 
over the gorge. In fact it does frequently en- 
tirely hang. For it was timbered out so that 
while one wheel might be over solid rock, the 
other would be upon wooden sills from which a 
pebble could be dropped a hundred feet or more 
below. The stage road cost a vast sum, and is 
now among the many exhibitions of the destruc- 
tiveness of capital as it works out new improve- 
ments. Every valuable creation of capital 



A RIVER FULL OF SALMON. 1 69 

wrecks all others whose place it takes. The older 
ones have performed their tasks, and now be- 
come comparatively useless. 

A RIVER BLACK WITH FISH. 

We had remarkably visible evidences of the 
strange and irresistible instinct of the salmon to 
climb steep waters from the sea. For many 
miles the Fraser runs or rather rushes with 
great speed. Below every projecting rock there 
is an eddy more or less large. In these eddies 
salmon were congregated by the thousands, 
showing their black backs and fins an inch or 
two above the surface. These little swirling 
pools are generall}^ many feet deep, and the finny 
voyagers must have been piled several deep one 
on the other. Over one crystal stream running 
into the river the road passes on a short bridge. 
In a pool in this creek, say twenty by fifty feet, 
the fish were so thickly packed that a man could 
almost have walked dry shod across the stream 
on salmon backs. In the ascent of the fish they 
fail often to overcome the rapid current and stop 
to rest in the eddies. I do not think I exagger- 
ate in saying we saw hundreds of thousands, 
possibly millions, in a part of our run not ex- 
ceeding thirty or forty miles. The fish looked 
small to us, for only a few inches of their backs 
could be seen. A fellow passenger, however, 



170 A summer's outing. 

assured us that such as we saw ran from six to 
nine pounds. They were the sock-eye salmon, 
the fattest and best variety for canning. We saw 
no Indians fishing as there were three years ago. 
Their stock is already laid in and stored away 
in caches built upon high posts or up among the 
branches of spreading trees. 

A hundred and eight}^ thousand fish averaging 
about eight pounds weight were caught in one 
day last week at New Westminster. A gentle- 
man of the locality told us that now was but the 
beginning of the running season, and in three 
weeks there would be a hundred thousand where 
there was one now. A scientist was probably 
not mistaken when he asserted that the water of 
the world could produce more food for man, acre 
for acre, than the land. I fear the canneries are 
causing too many to be killed now. 

An unitiated person would have thought that 
great sport could be had just now on the Fraser 
with rod and line. In this, had he made the ex- 
periment, he would have been grievously mis- 
taken. The salmon when on the run never rise 
to the fly or takes any food. They start from 
the ocean very fat and live on their fat until the 
spawning season is over, by which time they be- 
come so lean as to be scarcely edible. Indeed, 
the great bulk of them die of injuries suffered 
on their upward run or of starvation. Thousands 



nature's queer ways. 171 

are seen floating later in the season down 
the upper streams, bruised, torn and emaciated. 
The people out here have the impression that a 
salmon never feeds again after leaving the sea 
in its spawning journey, and that none of the 
vast millions which commence the voyage ever 
return. They spawn and die. This fish will 
spawn in a few weeks in the clear brooks and 
streams high up among the mountains. The 
eggs lie dormant until the warmth of next 
years' sun hatches them out. The small fry 
has then the clear water to commence its life in. 
It feeds, grows and runs down to the sea there- 
after to do and die as its progenitors have been 
doing since the race began. 

Nature's ways are very queer, and it seems to 
permit more inconceivable things to be done by 
its creatures beneath the water than upon the 
land. A fish disporting itself in a limpid 
stream or gently propelling itself deep down in 
the transparent sea, appears to be absolutely en- 
joying existence — to be reveling in his "dolce far 
niente," and yet it would seem that the whole 
finny family is spawned to bear the whips and 
spurs of most cruel fate. From the instant a 
little fellow emerges from the Qgg up to his ful- 
lest growth, he is always on the ragged edge of 
some bigger fish's maw. He climbs with inten- 
sest labor the rushing stream from the instinct 



172 A SUMMERS OUTING. 

of procreation, and then begins to die from slow 
inanition — the crnelest of deaths. Experiment 
has shown that the fish learns nothing by stndy 
— everything is from instinct ; that he has no 
sense whatever. Lucky fish : for surely to him 
ignorance is bliss. 

TWO HUNDRED MILES ON A COWTATCHER. 

Three 3^ears ago I rode along a part of Thomp- 
son Canyon and down the whole of Fraser into 
Vancouver, some 200 miles, on the cowcatcher. 
It is the most delightful of all railroad running. 
We are ahead of the train. We seem not to be 
on wheels, but simply to be gliding along the 
iron way, propelled by an invisible impulse. 
There is no jar, no dust nor cinders. Over 
trestles a hundred feet high of frail and creak- 
ing timbers we rush without the least uneasiness 
or anxiety, for the machine and train being be- 
hind us and unseen we do not realize that hun- 
dreds of tons are being whirled over the frail 
bridge-work, and forget that there is anything 
heavier upon them than our own weight ; onward 
we slide ; a turn brings us face to face with a 
mighty precipice; we are rushing headlong 
against the rocky barrier when a sudden bend 
around a jutting point, reveals before us a hole 
in the rocky mass ; into it we are shot — into 
the dark ; a roar is heard behind us as if a thousand 



MOUXTAIXS AND TUXXELS. 1 73 

demons are after us in full chase; a glimmer 
of light steals along the iron ribbons before 
us, and then we burst into the broad day with a 
new and beautiful scene pictured for our delight; 
down below us rushes the river through deep 
fissures between the rock}^ walls ; high above us 
lift mountains cutting the sk}^ with bands of 
snow along the upper heights ; past Indian ham- 
lets, near which sits a squaw or two and lounges 
a lazy buck, while their children look at us as 
we fly along in indolent carelessness. Tunnel 
after tunnel, about thirty in all, swallow and 
then throw us forth. Once on the Thompson, 
the iron ribbons ahead rest one on the ground, 
the other on timbers projecting over a precipice. 
Over it we glide. Fifteen hundred feet below 
runs the silvery stream, so nearly under us that 
we think we could pitch a penny into it. But 
so lightly do we skim along that we feel no 
tremor. Ah ! mine was a beautiful ride. It was 
three years ago, but as I looked at the same road 
as we passed along it a few days ago, the whole 
picture came back to me, and I feel sure the 
memory of it will live with me while I live. 

Up the Thompson we came now, and saw 
some beautiful valley farms early at da^^break, 
with bright wheat fields, cozy homes, and sleek- 
looking stock. The mountains above were 
mighty uplifted long mounds, not rock}^, broken 



174 A SUMMER^S OUTING. 

nor peaked. Pines were scattered over them as 
if they were planted in npland parks — isolated 
trees, just enough to make parks bright, while 
over the ground was spread a carpet of velvet 
of a brownish drab. Tliis effect was from the 
low bunch grass, now dried into hay. This grass 
is short, but sustains all winter through cattle 
in oily fat. The Thompson finally came up to 
a level with us, and was a clear and dignified 
river, making the meadows green. After a 
while it broadened into a great lake — the 
" Shuswap " — along whose pebbly shore, under 
great sloping mountains, we ran for over a third 
of a hundred miles. The Shuswap is an irreg- 
ular sheet with long arms. No where is it 
much if any over a mile wide. High mountains 
lift from the water and mount upward in gentle 
slopes, well wooded. In a few places there are 
tiny plains at their feet. On these are the wig- 
wams of the Shuswap tribe of Indians. 

Leaving this beautiful sheet we entered a 
range of mountains lofty and grand, with now 
and then a shoulder mantled with snow. Three 
3^ears ago this range was all green with noble 
trees ; now, as far as we could see, the fire fiend 
has done its work, leaving forests of tall trunks 
in gray, with a fresh undergrowth beginning to 
spring. Even yet, however, the Gold Mountains 
are a noble range. 



A PICTURE OF MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 1 75 

It would seem we had seen enough of the 
grand. But wait. We reach a broad flowing 
river coming from the north. It is white with 
detritus ground from the eternal ribs of earth by 
the irresistible march of glaciers. It is our 
own Columbia, which has been paying hei 
Majesty's American land a short visit before it 
sweeps with majesty towards the Pacific. We 
cross this and enter upon a wealth of mountain 
scenery, which belittles what we have passed 
through, though we thought it so fine. High to 
the right lifts a monarch capped with snow. 
High to our left is a huge pair of twins, the 
double head of a monster. 

Our iron horse pants along a rushing river cut- 
ting with foaming torrent through chasms so nar- 
row that the father of our land could have leaped 
across them in the spring-tide of his manhood. Up, 
up we climb, twenty-eight hundred feet in less than 
fifty miles. The river along which we climb is 
always lashing itself into creamy foam ; now in 
rushing rapids, then in a succession of leaps one 
after the other, as if in mad frolic ; now almost 
throwing its spray into our faces ; then two or 
three hundred feet down in rocky canyons, and at 
one place through a notched and jagged cleft in 
the rock, over two hundred feet deep, and only 
twenty-five feet wide at the top. This is the 
Albert Can^^on. Mountains tower over us, pile 



176 A SUMMER^S OUTING. 

Upon pile, tliickly tree clad below, but to a larger 
extent gray with lofty trunks all dead and bare 
from forest fires. I do not know but these fires 
have been a friend to the tourist. For his vision 
is widened. 

When I was there three years since, there 
had been in the Selkirks but few destruct- 
ive fires. The forests were so dense that we 
often lost fine bits of view, which are now free 
to us. We look aloft and see great snow-fields, 
glimmering through openings between the 
mountains nearest us. We put our glasses up 
and catch the green tints in farrowed snow 
masses which tell us we are looking at glaciers. 
Up ! up ! The mountains become higher and 
the precipices bolder and the torrent at our feet 
more fierce and foaming. We halt for a moment 
at Illecillewact, said to be a rich mining camp. 
Far over us thousands feet, on the side of the 
mountain, so steep that it seems to us a sheer 
precipice, we see what looks like a mere burrow 
for a wild animal. Men are delving through it 
in quest of silver ore. 

After a while we see what appears to be an- 
other railroad coming down the mountain side 
parallel to ours, and a couple of hundred feet 
above us. A wise one smiles and tells us it is 
our own road which here makes a letter '' S " — a 
loop almost doubling upon itself, and a large 



A CROOKED ROAD. 177 

part of it on winding trestles. The trestles 
creak and groan beneath us, but we bend around 
and back upon them, and soon our whistle 
screams. A quick turn around a spur reveals a 
frozen stream bending over a lofty mountain 
brow, like a curtain of white with irregular 
streaks of pale green, and sending its foot almost 
down to our level. But bend your head back. 
Far up over us is Sir Donald piercing the sky ; 
a sharp pointed three-faced rock lifting over 
11,500 feet, under whose shadow we will halt at 
Glacier House, over 4,000 feet above the sea, 
while the pointed peak above us, all rock, stands 
about a mile and a half higher and so close that 
one would think a man on its pinnacle could al- 
most throw a stone to the platform on which 
stands the pretty hotel. 

We stop a day here. I spent three or four 
days there three years ago and would never pass 
it without a few hours' pause. Few spots on 
earth afford a sublimer picture than is seen from 
Glacier House in the Selkirks. It is a vast aud- 
itorium; stage and audience-hall, not a half mile 
wide, with lofty mountains stretching along either 
side six or seven miles — all covered by noble 
trees below and snow sheeted above. Sir Donald 
cold and rocky, is on one side, glaciered heights 
on the other. 



1 73 A summer's outing. 

HEMMED IN BY ROCKY HEIGHTS. 

A mighty glacier hangs down like a snowy 
drop curtain over the rear of the auditorium, 
while a straight line of mountain heights en- 
closes the stage. This line is jagged and toothed 
on its crest, with lofty glaciers glistening under 
the pinnacles. Sitting on the platform in front 
of the pretty station hotel just before sunset, 
watching the sunlight climb the rocky heights 
eastward, while those to the w^est were sinking into 
grayness, and then a little later as the daylight 
dodges into twilight and all becomes first a 
mellow gray, cold and repellent, except over the 
snow, which seems to emit a light all its own — 
sitting thus one sees a picture equaled in few 
spots of the w^orld. 

The entire scene is enclosed by mountains, as 
in a great oblong pit with corners rounded off, 
no outlet being apparent. The mountains seem 
to close in upon the glorious picture. It should 
be seen just before and after sunset and until the 
lessening twilight is swallow^ed up, and then in 
the morning, when the grayness high above seems 
crystallized. The very light encircling the peaks 
seem frozen until a sun ray kisses Sir Donald's 
peak. The cold rocks then catch a yellow glow 
and the snows below ere long are tinted with pink. 
Three years ago I looked at it morning and evening 



SHLKIRKS AND ROCKIES. 1 79 

for three or four days, and on this trip one morn- 
ing and evening". 

A short run brings the Eastward bound trav- 
eler to Rogers pass, one of the ruggedest ever 
traversed by railroad. Lofty rocky mountains are 
all around with cold glaciers hanging near their 
crests. 

The drop down to the eastward from the sum- 
mit of the Selkirk Mountains to the western edge 
of the Rockies is all the way grand. We again 
cross the Columbia, which runs north skirt- 
ing the Selkirk range, and flows again south- 
ward past the point crossed by us two days be- 
fore and seventy miles back but a hundred and 
twenty five around. Then for some miles we 
look upon these two mighty ranges, one on our 
right and the other on our left. Both are lofty, 
broken, and pinnacled, and snow clothes many 
summits of each, yet they are strangely unlike 
each other — as much so as if belonging to widely 
distant regions. 

Asweranupthe Columbiathe day grew hot, un- 
til at Golden it was absolutely sweltering. We had 
felt nothing like it for nearly a month. We were 
glad to quit the Columbia and enter a mighty gorge 
cooled by the sprays from the Kicking Horse, a 
wildly rushing river coming down from the sum- 
mit of the Rockies. Up this foaming torrent, 
between lofty mountains, along gorges barely wide 



i8o A summer's outing. 

enough to permit the river to leap between, the 
road cuts its way in galleries of rocks ; through 
tunnels now on one side of the river, then on the 
other, and enters and winds high up a broad 
valley between great mountains stretching north 
and south. It would seem the climb was ended, 
but not so. We have to take some fifteen or 
more miles among the loftiest mountains of the 
great backbone of the continent, looking up ever 
at gray rocks piercing the sky 6,000 to 8,000 feet 
almost sheer over us ; looking down into narrow 
valleys or rather gorges 1,000 and 2,000 feet 
below us. Almost overwhelmed by nature's 
grandeur, we climb, while a great engine puffs 
and groans before us, and another pants and 
wheezes pushing behind. Even with these two 
great iron horses, tugging behind and before, 
we make not much more speed than a rapid pe- 
destrian could walk were he on the level. We 
are climbing a grade of about 200 feet in the 
mile. 

SILVER LADEN MT. STEPHEN. 

But see that line of timbering hugging the face 
of Mt. Stephen. A prospector from across the 
mighty gorge saw with his glass a quartz vein on 
Stephen. By perilous climbing along ledges he 
visited it, to find a rich ledge of silver ore. Yon- 
der long gallery carved out of the rock's face is 



SILVER MINES. l8l 

for miners to go to the vein to bore into the 
mountain's heart or wherever the vein leads 
them. They would tunnel through the fiery 
walls of Hades if pure free silver were floating 
on the top of the Devil's soup boiler. 

I wonder if those fellows up in yonder gallery 
ever pause to take in the grandeur of the scenery 
thrown about them. The mighty Giver of Good 
heaped up those piles of grandeur and beauty. 
The preachers intimate that the imp of darkness 
tempts us poor mortals with gold and silver. Be- 
lieving as they do in the existence of a personal 
devil outside of man's nature, they should bow 
down and beg him to be good natured until their 
race be safe. They are powerless to hurt him. 
Luther'sbible hitempty air; to abuse the devilonly 
makes one's throat sore, and some people really 
grow savage in their denunciation of Old Nick. 
I once met a really good, pious woman who 
hated bad words, but did not disdain to utter 
real cuss words when denouncing his Satanic 
Majesty. The Arab tribe call Satan the name- 
less one. Some preachers should follow suit. 
Abusing the devil has been done for countless 
ages, and to all appearances the old knave has 
as much power as when he poured sweet poison 
into Mother Eve's too willing ears. Poor thing ! 
She was not used to apples, and a golden pippin 
was tempting. In these latter days it takes 



i82 A summer's outing. 

apples of real gold to win a woman, at least among 
the " four hundred." But my e3^e ! a shower of 
such fruit can tw^ine her plump arms about the 
devil's neck even w^hen blue blazes are pouring 
from his benzine distilling lungs. But, pshaw ! 
What a disposition a pious man has to preach. 
I must quit it. 

It is hard to determine which affords the 
grandest scenery, the Selkirks or the Rockies. 
On a first run on this road probably nine out of 
ten would say the former, but the second or the 
third trip ^vould put the latter fully up. The}' 
are of as different types as if separated b}^ a 
continent. Both are broken, notched and peaked, 
3'et they affect the beholder differentl3^ The 
Selkirks are grand and terrible, the Rockies 
majestic and gloomy. 

The IllicUiwact (Indian for rapid water) and 
the Kicking Horse, the two rivers w^hich rush 
from the two ranges w^estw^ard — the former 
into the Columbia at Revelstoke, the other 
into the same river a hundred and odd 
miles above at Golden — are somewhat different 
types of torrent rivers. The Kicking Horse on 
the summit at Hector, springs from a deep, dark, 
but calm lake a mile above the sea. A mile or 
so eastward, and a half a dozen feet higher at 
the actual summit, is a shallow little lake, or 
rather a system of short, deep morasses. A 



BANFF. 183 

mild wind from the west would take their waters 
into the Bow River, which flows into the Sas- 
katchewan, then through Lake Winnipeg and 
on to Hudson Bay, while a breeze from the East 
carries a part of their currents into the grand 
Columbia and then into the mighty Pacific. 

How like the fate of men ! A shower or a cloud 
of dust sent a mighty one to pine on a bleak isle 
in a far-off sea, and made another moderate man 
the idol of a nation and its chosen Xestor. An 
invisible line with a name separated the birth- 
places of two men, and this simple separation 
made one of them the leader of a lost cause but 
the idol of millions, and the other the victorious 
hero whom history may call the savior of a na- 
tion. In our every-day life in modest places, we 
see the most trivial circumstances, mere straws, 
turning the fortunes of nearl}^ all whom we have 
known intimateh\ It would probabh' amaze 
most people to find how small the thing was 
which sent them to high fortune, or led their feet 
into paths of mediocrit}^ or on the road to adver- 
sity. 

A run from nine to ten hours from Glacier, 
alwa3^s through grand and majestic scenery and 
often among terrible and glooni}' heights and 
gorges, brought us to Banff, near the western 
slope of the Rockies. Shortl}^ after leaving 
Vancouver, we had motmted the observation car, 



A summer's outing. 



and continued on one of them except at night, until 
well into the great plains east of the mountains. 
This system adds greatly to the pleasure of pass- 
ing through fine scenery. 

PANORAMIC BEAUTIES OF BANFF. 

Banff is by many considered the gem of this 
great road, because of its beautiful location and 
also because of its warm and hot mineral springs. 
The Canadian Pacific company has erected here 
the most elegant and best appointed hotel which 
can be found in a wild mountainous region prob- 
ably in the world. Indeed it will compare favor- 
ably with the best hostelries in the neighbor- 
hood of large cities. 

Here in a wild basin of the mighty backbone of 
the continent, 2,300 miles from Montreal, nearly 
1,000 from Winnipeg, and 6co from Vancouver, 
with no populous or productive lands contiguous, 
but surrounded by nature's boldest and roughest 
works, in which are the haunts of wild beasts — 
here one finds all the elegances and comforts of 
a city's suburbs; all of the delicacies and luxuries 
of a city hotel, coupled with the hygiene of a sani- 
tarium, the ozone and bracing atmosphere of a 
lofty altitude, and the glorious scenery of a 
mountain fastness. The house is architecturally 
very fine and all its appointments are first class. 
It has a French Chef presiding over the kitchen, 



PICTURESQUE SCENERY. 185 

who sends to the table dishes to satisfy an epi- 
cure. The house and grounds are lighted by 
electricity which adds greatly to the beauty of 
the place at night. In the drawing-rooms, sur- 
rounded by costly furniture, one can listen to 
music from a superb piano, and in the dining 
saloon can satisfy the most voracious or the most 
epicurean taste. 

One can loiter lazily around the broad piazzas 
girdling the great hotel, and let vision lose itself 
among lofty, rocky, grotesque mountains, or sit 
in graceful Kiosk observatories overlooking a 
bold river tumbling near by in a furious cascade. 
One can watch the limpid, green waters of a 
large mountain stream meeting and unwillingly 
mingling with those of a milk-white, glacier-fed 
river, just below the vortex under the cascade. 
One can wander in pretty pine woods on gentle 
slopes; can drive or ride along well- graveled 
roads through the National Park, now along 
limpid streams, then on winding curves or 
mounting by zig-zag bold rocky heights; can 
bathe in porcelain tubs filled by hot mineral 
waters just from plutonic laboratories far below 
the mountain's foundations, and then sweat in 
soft blankets almost as white as snow, or can by 
a tunnel through lava rocks reach a grotto or 
cave scooped out by agencies of hot water — a 
veritable gothic room in the rock, lighted dimly 



i86 A summer'vS outing. 

from a small aperture in the apex. Here in this 
gem of a natatorium one can swim in water above 
blood heat, five feet deep and twenty-five from 
rim to rim. When satiated with his warm bath 
in this glorious pool, he can mount a great sta- 
lagmite on one side — a stalagmite resembling a 
huge mushroom — and a shower of cool water 
from a natural spring tumbles from above upon 
him, or he can stand waist deep in the warm em- 
brace of the fluid while the cool spra3^s fall upon 
his head and shoulders. 

If one prefers an outdoor swim he can splash in 
asulphur spring fortyfeet across, of Nature's fash- 
ioning, while bubbling through sands at his feet 
water heated to 95 degrees rises and lures him to 
swimming depth. If he prefer a real genuine swim 
he finds it near thebackdoorof the hotel in a tank a 
hundred feet long, in fresh cold water with the 
air barely taken off. In his room he has a soft 
bed to sleep upon, surrounded by tasty furni- 
ture, and eats in a large dining room attended by 
silent waiters, and provided with fruits, wines 
and viands fit to satisfy the most fastidious. 

Close under the hotel an angler now and then 
catches a trout of over a pound weight, and in a 
lake a few miles off in the park is rewarded with 
speckled fellows of fine size, and with lake trout 
not infrequently running up to forty pounds. I 
met at Glacier Mr. E- S. P., of Chicago, with his 



MOUNTAIN PALACES. 187 

family going west. He caught a fine lot of fish 
in Devil's Lake near Banff, one a lake trout 
weighing thirt3^-six pounds. There are few 
mountain resorts offering so man}^ natural at- 
tractions as this Rocky ^Mountain hot spring. 

The mountains around are nearly all built of 
horizontal stratified rocks. Some of them present 
curious resemblances. One is a mighty palace of 
several stories — each upper one recedingbackfrom 
the one below. It reminds me much of old orien- 
tal palaces visited when we were making our race 
with the sun. This palace-like appearance is, 
however, le>st upon the majority of tourists, be- 
cause one end of the mountain presents the like- 
ness of a huge templar warrior reclining in 
miles of stature. This picture is so grotesque, 
that the other passes unobserved. 

I cannot recall an^^where else in the world, a 
group of mountains, whose rocks are so distinctly 
horizontal in their beds, as those in this part of the 
Rockies. They look as if there had once been a 
vast upland plateau, which had been partl}^ 
abraded and washed awa}^, leaving lofty moun- 
tains more or less snow covered throughout the 
3'ear, and many of them alwa3'S clothed in 
mantles of white. The wear of countless eons 
of rains and frosts have made deep valle3^s and 
gorges and the beds of beautiful rivers, and 
rushing torrents, leaving the slopes of the 



i88 A summer's outing. 

mountains generally not too steep to afford foot- 
ing for thick forests or for bands and copses of 
firs and pines. Now and then the mountains 
are so broken down as to present mighty preci- 
pices — clean cut cleavages, as if a single moun- 
tain had been split and sundered in two. 

NORTHWESTERN PLAINS FRUITFUL. 

My friend, the late visitor from Chicago to the 
Shah of Persia, whom we left, with his daugh- 
ters, aboard ship at Nanaimo, overtook us at 
Banff, where we spent two days. He rarely 
enthuses over scenery and has little love of 
Nature or its beauties. Switzerland is to him 
worth one visit, but no more, and Tyrol is a 
bore. He loves travel, but to travel among the 
haunts of men and w^omen, not of Nature. Ber- 
lin and London are pleasant places, but Paris is 
his paradise. He had been filled with ennui on 
the w^hole Alaskan journey, and had uttered but 
once an exclamation of pleasure, and that was 
when we sailed out of Glacier Bay. He then 
cried out, " Thank heaven our ship is turned 
homeward." Even he is really somewhat enthu- 
siastic over the beauties of the Canadian road 
and is charmed by Banff. I suspect, however, 
all because of getting through quickly. He 
could enjoy the rush through towering moun- 
tains, because he was getting where he could 
revel in rising stocks, 



BUFFALO WALLOWS. 1 89 

The plains east of the mountains on this road 
are beautiful. Great sweeps of land in more or 
less lifting benches stretch north and south as 
far as the eye can reach ; not bleak or parched 
or covered with the dead ash colorof sage brush, as 
the same plains are south of our boundary, but 
fairl}^ green and restful to the eye. We tried 
to go back in fanc}^ to long ago years, when 
countless thousands buffalo marched in single 
file along the trails which they cut down into the 
hard soil, and which are 3^et seen crossing our 
road nearly north and south. We tried to count 
the deep buffalo wallows, bored by horns and 
scooped out by hoofs, where the shagg}^ bulls 
tossed the dust and sent up clouds which made 
the air thick for nian}^ a mile around. We saw 
in fancy the heavy maned bulls and heard their 
bellowings, which won the gaze and admiration 
of the mild eyed cows. We recalled how these 
thousands of wallows would be filled by the next 
rains, and how succeeding herds would bathe in 
the mud, and then march onward a moving mass 
of thick mortar. Thousands of these wallows 
are seen, and for several hundred miles the fur- 
rowed trails are rarely out of sight for many 
miles. They general!}' run in nearly parallel 
lines from north to south ; now and then de- 
flected to get around an Alkali lake or pool : or 
where old leaders had scented pure water ahead 



190 A summer's outing. 

and bent their way toward it, and all of the 
mighty hosts following the lead. What count- 
less thousands there must have been ! The In- 
dians killed them, but killed them for food or 
for raiment. The white man came ; he who was 
fashioned in the image of his God ; he who 
claims to be a follower of Him who taught 
charity to all things and gentleness of spirit — 
he came in his boasted civilization — born of 
families whose pedigrees run back a thousand 
years — and killed and slew in the mere love of 
killing — killed and slew simply because he 
could kill and slay. One of the cruelest wars 
ever waged, was the insane crusade against the 
bison of the plains. Now these plains will know 
no more forever their old tenants. 

Occasionally troops of horses and herds of 
cattle are seen, but for nearly a day's ride there 
are only scattered farms, and they are as yet not 
prosperous ; but in Eastern Assiniboia and in 
Manitoba farms became more frequent and crops 
looked well, until finally in the latter province 
broad fields of fine wheat and oats and farm- 
houses covered the prairie as far as we could see. 
The improvement in the prairie land, running 
some 200 miles on our line, has wonderfully 
grown since I was there three years ago. The 
breadth of grain standing or being harvested is 
great. I am told there will be a yield this year 



GOOD FISHING. 191 

of twenty million bushels. These people boast 
that their hard-shell wheat is decidedly superior 
to that of Dakota and Minnesota. It is now 
very cold and frosts are feared. The wheat is 
largely out of danger, but oats need some two or 
more weeks of good weather yet. Root crops 
seem good on the plains where wheat is not yet 
a success. The plains are in Assiniboia, the 
prairies in Manitoba. 

At Winnipeg my friends went south. I con- 
tinued on the rail to Port Arthur. There is not 
much worth seeing east of Winnipeg. Thin 
pine land of small trees are seen, generally flat, 
with rounded rising ground back from the road ; 
all more or less covered with bowlders of granite, 
many of great size. Lakes and lakelets abound. 
My daughter remarked that in Yellowstone Park 
there was a fearful waste of hot water, in Alaska 
of ice, and here of gray granite. The country 
back of Port Arthur is said to be rich in mines. 
I can believe it. Nothing is made in vain, and 
this county is evidently fit for nothing else ex- 
cept mines. The public rooms of the hotels 
seem to be frequented by only two classes of 
men — miners and fishers. Here a knot talked 
of minerals and claims, there of three or four and 
six pounders. The Nipigon, near by, is said to 
be the finest of trout streams. Mr. Higin- 
botham, of Chicago, and sons left the day before 



192 A summer's outing. 

our arrival after having made fine catches. The 
people seemed much amused at their anxiety to 
save a pailful. They chartered a steamer to 
take them and their fry, quickly to Duluth. 

PORT ARTHUR AND LAKE SUPERIOR. 

Port Arthur has a beautiful site on a gentle 
slope, with an elevated bench behind for resi- 
dences. If it were in the States it would be 
boomed. It is Canada's only port on Lake 
Superior, and in Thunder Bay has a grand 
harbor. The weather is so cool, throughout the 
summer, that evening fires are rarely dispensed 
with. This should be considered a terminus for 
the C. P; R. R., at least for all heavy freights 
and grain. The road has now two or three 
1,200,000 bushel capacity elevators, and I am 
informed intends immediately to build several 
more. These will enable it to move the grain 
from Manitoba, and hold it during the winter 
and until the opening of navigation. 

We had intended continuing by rail to Siid- 
bury, north of Lake Huron, but finding that we 
should pass all the interesting country by night 
we halted a day and then boarded the Alberta, 
the Canadian Pacific railroad steamer, a Clyde- 
built vessel of some 2,000 tonnage, with clean 
and comfortable rooms, polite officers and ser- 
vants, and in every way first-class. The break 



RAILROAD COURTESIKS. 1 93 

on the great run from ocean to ocean on this 
longest of the world's trunk lines, by taking 
steamer between Owen Sonnd on Georgian Bay 
and Port Arthur, is a most agreeable one. 

It is charming to sail on a good ship on this 
the mightiest of fresh-water seas, and to lose 
sight of land while skimming over its dark 
green depths. We have had a smooth sea and 
delicious bracing air, and fiud nothing to com- 
plain of and much to commend. Before closing 
I wish to say something of the remarkable civil- 
ity of the officers and employes of this great 
road. The managers evidently know the value 
of politeness on the part of those who cater to 
the traveling community, the hardest and most 
difficult to satisfy of all others. Four out of five 
of them pack their trunks for a trip and expect 
to find the comforts of their home while on the 
go, and find fault at every turn. This Van 
Home seems to know, and has so drilled his 
people, from the highest to the lowest, that cour- 
tesy, the cheapest of valuable commodities, is 
never lacking. 

I am finishing this letter while our ship lies 
in the great lock at the ''Soo." We are again 
under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. 
The rush of waters of the great "Sault" fills the 
air with its roar. This was a few moments since 
deadened by the greater turmoil from some 



194 A summer's outing. 

twenty dynamite blasts in the hard rock through 
which Uncle Sam is cutting for the huge lock, 
which is to aid the present one in passing to and 
fro the mighty traffic of our great system of 
fresh-water seas. The present lock is wholly 
inadequate, and steamers often wait for five hours 
for their turn, and that, too, although it admits 
several vessels at a time. Over beyond the cas- 
cade the Dominion is erecting a vast system of 
locks on its own ground. The near future will 
need them all. 

A PLEA FOR RECIPROCITY. 

We look across the foamy river and see a 
beautiful little town, the "Canadian Soo." Be- 
hind it lifts a gently rising land, all clothed in 
sweet verdure and making an exquisite picture. 
There, for thousands ^of miles east and west 
and extending several hundreds of miles to the 
north, are a people in every way our kinsmen. 
We wander among them and feel that we are 
among friends of our own clan, and yet I cannot 
take my satchel ashore without submitting it to 
the inspection of our custom-house officers. How 
long will this thing last? Why should two 
people so closely united by every bond except 
that of so-called nationality, submit to this ham- 
pering of their kindly relations? When will 
the bars be thrown down so that the Canuck and 



AT THE " SOO." 195 

the Yankee can trade as brothers and friends? I 
may not be a statesman, but what little of state- 
craft I possess, tells me there should be absolute 
reciprocity between Americans from the Gulf of 
Mexico to the frozen seas ; reciprocity at least 
for all productions of the respective countries. 

I look out of my window^ ; the ship is sinking 
down between the massive walls of the lock. In 
a few moments we will be on a level with Lake 
Huron, and just below the lock we Avill land in 
Michigan. So now we bid adieu to the hospitali- 
ties of President Van Home, and will commend 
his iron highway to all who love nature and its 
grand works, and who delight in its sublimest 
displays. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ST. MARY'S RIVER. CHARMING SCENERY. 
THE LOCALITY FOR SUMMER HOMES. AN 
EPIvSODE. MACKINAW. GRAND RAPIDS, A 
BEAUTIFUL CITY. 

At Sault Ste. Marie, we took steamer for 
Mackinaw. The steamer was comfortable, and 
the trip a charming one. 

The run down the Ste. Marie into Lake 
Huron, has few equals in sweet, gentle, and at 
times picturesque scenery. Low lying hills lie 
on both banks of the river, some of them lifting 
from the water. Now and then, a promentory or 
an island point lifts the general quiet tone into 
something of boldness. These are washed and 
laved by waters of pallucid purity. The hills, 
both however, generally lie back from the river on 
banks with pretty plains under them ; here, wide 
enough for a small field, or garden ; there, giving 
space for a pretty farm. The uplands rise from 
the small bottoms in easy flowing slopes, green 
in fresh growth. There are on both slopes oc- 
casional farms and small hamlets, affording life 
and movement to the pretty picture. 

When this continent shall become a single 
nation — one grand Republic ; the frozen arms of 
an Arctic ice-floe enfolding its northern boun- 
dary ; the warm breath of the Gulf of Mexico 

196 



GEORGIAN BAY. 197 

reddening tbe cheek of the orange and covering 
Magnolia groves with snowy bloom along its 
southern shores ; the mighty Pacific pouring its 
sonorous swell on its western confines from Beh- 
ring's sea to the Tropic of Cancer, and the storm 
breeding Atlantic roaring along its shores, from 
Lincoln Sea to Key West ; when brothers shall 
clasp hands across the deep waters of the lakes 
without the espionage of a custom collector, 
then these low-lying hills and sweet plains at 
their feet — these pretty islands and rugged pro- 
mentories, wall become the summer homes of the 
rich of the mighty land, and the green waters 
will reflect the villas and cottages of the wealthy 
and the well to do, along the entire river ; and 
the world will know no more beautiful and 
sweetly rural locality. 

I was leaning on the taffrail of our boat, enjoy- 
ing the sweet prospect — the long reach of 
Georgian Bay, lying to the east — and some bold 
points lifting about us, when I heard a gentle- 
man call the attention of a lad by his side, to a 
rock they could see in the distance through their 
glasses.* 

"At the foot of that rock, I caught twenty 
black bass in an hour," said the gentleman. 

A deep groan close by my side caught my ear. 
I turned to find a gray headed old man, also 



*The reader may take all reference to this gentleman as fact or 
fiction, as his own fancy suggests. 



198 A su:mmer's outing. 

leaning on the rail, whose glass was turned in 
the same direction as those of the gentleman and 
lad. The man of the groan, was evidenth^ 
seventy odd years old, with a gentle face, but 
now^ in deep and painful thought ; tears were 
coursing down his cheeks, and when he lowered 
his glasses, showed eyes red with weeping. His 
face looked so w^an that I feared he was sick. I 
spoke to him gentl3^ 

He answered me kindl}^, and then said: I was 
watching through my glass a spot in the dis- 
tance be3^ond the rock adverted to by the gentle- 
man to that boy, and when he spoke of catching 
fish at its base, a long ago past was weighing on 
my mind. His words brought up the groan you 
heard and not any illness of my own — a past 
connected with a big rock near the spot I was 
looking at, and of a traged}^ which deeply dis- 
tressed me, and changed the course of m}^ 
life.'^ 

I very naturally asked: "Are the matters you 
refer to, such that you cannot speak of them ?'' 
I handed him, at the same time, my card. He 
looked up saying "Ah, }- es ! I know of 3'ou. A 
few days since I read some letters of vours in 
the Chicago Tribune^ from the National Park. 
They made me half resolve to go there next 
year." He asked me if I intended publishing 
them in book form ;. that he thought such a 



MACKINAW. 199 

book, just now, would be acceptable ; that he 
had preserved my letters for use, should he 
make the excursion. A man who has published 
an}^ thing, is as easily captured by a kindly 
word for his bantling, as ever mother was by 
praise for her first baby. I told him that m}^ 
letters, even if enlarged as I might see fit, would 
hardl}^ make a book of fit size for publication. 

The elderh^ gentlemen landed at Alackinaw 
with us. After wandering over this pretty old 
island, visiting its places of interest which well 
repay a visit — after listening to a few dozen promi- 
nent lawyers, judges, merchants and ph3^sicians 
talking through their noses — all of them victims 
of hay-fever — I was lazily resting on the hotel 
piazza, awaiting the hour for taking the ferr}^ boat 
to reach the train for home, when my new made 
friend of the boat came to me and said: " ]\Ir. 
Harrison, 3'ou sa}^ your letters are not enough to 
make a book of publishing size. I spoke to 3^ou 
of a traged}^, which changed the course of my 
life. I have at home, but will send it to 3^ou, a 
manuscript, touching that sad affair, which would 
not be inappropriate in a letter touching a trip 
from the Soo to Chicago. The manuscript is a 
plain and faithful stor^^ of the events narrated ; 
you can, however, supply fictitious names, and 
alter certain immaterial points and touch up the 
whole. I thanked him, and assured him I would 



200 A summer's outing. 

probably gladly use his material. He afterward 
sent to me " The Secret of the Big Rock," which 
will be found following this letter. 

A night's run brought us to Grand Rapids. 
Its people ought to be proud of it. It is not only 
a thriving, busy town, growing with great rapid- 
ity, but is one of the prettiest cities in America. 
Its business quarters are fine and wear a metro- 
politan air, but its residence portion is very 
pretty. The streets are lined with trees, which 
grow with such luxuriance park commissioners 
might envy. 

We spent a half day in the charming place 
and in a few hours reached home, having enjoyed 
a glorious " outing," which I freely recommend 
every one who can, to make, and as early as pos- 
sible. If I had to choose between a trip to 
Europe of two or three months, and the excur- 
sion we have just made, and were compelled to 
forego one or the other, I would forego the Euro- 
pean one. 



PART II. 

THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SECRET OF THE BIG ROCK. 

In the spring of 185- I was head bookkeeper 
and confidential clerk of a Cincinnati firm, hav- 
ing a large trade with the Cotton States. I had 
an adored wife, and two fine children, who were 
our* pride and our delight. Not ambitious for 
wealth, I was perfectly satisfied if my endeavors 
conduced to the prosperit}" of ni}- emplo3'ers. ^M}^ 
salar}' was sufficient for our wants. None of us 
had ever been sick and the famil}' ph3^sician was 
rather a friend than an adviser. The firm was 
prosperous ; my employers, alwa3^s kind and 
considerate ; m}^ modest home was cheerful, and 
I believed m3^self the happiest of men. 

Cholera was that 3^ear prevalent, and toward 
the first of June, threatened to become epidemic 
in our cit3^ M3^ employers hurried with their 
families to the countr3^, leaving me in full 
charge of the house. Continuous immunity 
from sickness, made m3^ wife and m3^self so con- 
fident, that had we been able to strike the sign 
of the passover on our door posts, we would 
scarcely have thought the precaution necessar3^ 
Even the dread scourge, cholera, had few terrors 
for us. 

203 



204 A summer's outing. 

Going home one Saturda}^ afternoon, I read 
on the Bulletin Board of a newspaper of&ce, that 
the physicians believed Cincinnati had passed 
the crisis ; that no epidemic need be feared. 
I had a habit, when walking alone, of whist- 
ling softly. Near my house a neighbor smiled, 
as he said, "he was glad to see my mouth in so 
fine a pucker, for it spoke well of the day. 
My wife met me at the door, as usual, but told 
me she felt quite sick ; seeing my face become 
clouded, she assured me it was not much, and 
laughingly repeated a witt}^ speech of our little 
girl. Hardl}^ had she finished, when she almost 
screamed with pain. In twenty-four hours, she 
was a corpse; and Monday, at noon, I was wife- 
less and childless. 

I did not pray to die, believing that God knev/ 
and did what was best for his children ; but I 
would have greeted with a smile the grim mon- 
ster, had he reached out his hand for me. 

In two days I was at my desk, for there were 
important matters to be attended to. The neces- 
sity for work, kept me from falling by the way- 
side. My mother had taught me, "that man's 
highest duty is, to do his duty." This saying 
had been adopted as my motto. 

The next week, my employers returned to 
town, and ordered me to Fort Mackinaw for a 
couple of months' vacation, presenting me 



THE OLD man's STORY. 205 

with a thousand dollar check, to cover my expen- 
ses. Two months between the Island and the Soo 
were passed in fishing, with such benefits result- 
ing, that the excursion has been renewed when- 
ever an absolute necessit}^ for a change has been 
felt. 

M}^ emplo3xrs on my return, seeing the good 
effects upon me, of the water and the rod, pre- 
sented me with a nice skiff, telling me to take 
every Thursday afternoon for a holiday, and to 
keep them supplied with fish for Friday" ; at the 
same time, kindl}^ informing me, that a plate 
would alwa3\s be at one or the other of their tables 
for me to help enjoy my catch. 

Being a man of almost machine like habits of 
regularity, my boat v\^as always seen on the 
proper afternoon, rain or shine, during the fish- 
ing seasons for several years. 

It was in '58 that I accidentally threw my line 
in a deep pool or hole, in the Licking river, a 
mile or two from the Ohio, and almost immedi- 
ately struck a fine gaspergou perch, or as the 
people in Kentuck}^ called it, a "New Light." 
This fish was first seen in the state, when the 
forerunners of the present Cambellite, or Chris- 
tian church, the "New Lights," were creating 
much enthusiasm in the Kentucky religious 
world. 



2o6 A summer's outing. 

The catcli was followed by several others, 
when a terrible splashing was made close to my 
hook by an out-rigger rowed by a stalwart 
negro. The Ethiopian scowled upon me as he 
shot by. In a few moments he returned and 
caught a crab^ letting an oar back water about 
the same place on his run down stream. The 
disturbance drove all the fish from the locality ; 
at least I had no more bites. 

The two following Thursdays, I tried the 
same pool, but my darkey was again rowing 
about the ground, and no fish were to be had. 

About a month later, there was a press of 
business at the store. At the request of our 
senior to forego my usual holiday, I worked all 
Thursday afternoon, with the understanding I 
was to take the next day and bring in my fish 
for Friday's supper. I started early and rowed 
some distance up the Licking, to what were con- 
sidered good fishing grounds. In passing the 
spot where my sport had been twice disturbed, 
I saw the outrigger handled by the sable oars- 
man, while a handsome young man in the stern 
drew up a fine black bass. The negro again 
scowled at me. 

I reached my ground, and was having but in- 
different success, when almost without a ripple 
the outrigger drew up close to my side. 



THE OLD man's story. 207 

"WHat luck?" demanded the gentleman, in a 
clear, sweetly modulated voice, which made me 
for a minute forget the colored man's evident ill 
will. 

'^Rather poor ; nothing to what I was enjoy- 
ing four weeks ago, before your boat drove all 
the fish away from the hole where I saw you an 
hour ago. I have a notion your man had a 
method in his madness." 

The gentleman laughed a laugh so breezy 
and cheery, that it drew me at once to him. 

''Yes, Jim told me of his exploit, and we have 
come up to invite you back to " our hole " as he 
calls it." 

I could not refuse an offer so cordially extended. 

The gentleman as we gently floated down the 
stream informed me, that Jim had selected " our 
hole"«as one little likely to attract Cincinnati 
Waltons, and regularly every Friday left in it a 
fine feed for fish ; that Jim was almost amphibi- 
ous and seemed to know how to draw the finny 
denizens of the river to whatever spot he selected 
and at fixed times ; that he w^as surprised to 
learn I had found fish in the place on Thursday, 
when there should have been none until Friday ; 
that the sable conjuror was not so much put out, 
because I had found the spot, as because the fish 
had lost their reckoning and were a da}^ ahead 
of time. 



2o8 A summer's outing. 

" I am supposed to be Jim's boss," he smilingly 
went on, " but in fact, on the water, am governed 
by Jim ; his rod is one of iron." 

At " our hole " we lay too, and in an hour had 
a fine mess of bass and new lights — as many as 
we needed. 

Felden, was the name my new acquaintance 
gave me as his — "Jack Felden " he said, " and 
this coon is Jim Madison." 

Jim grinned and was the very personification 
of the free and easy, yet servile southern " body 
servant." 

Mr. Felden said, " I make it a rule, Mr. Jami- 
son, never to kill a single fish I can not consume 
either myself or through a few friends, to whom 
I now and then send a mess. The poor things 
have a right to their pursuit of life, health and 
happiness, and should not be killed in wanton 
love of killing. As one of the dominant animals 
of this earth, I claim the right to take fish for 
my uses. I enjoy the sport of angling ; but 
when enough are caught the sport ends, and I 
reel in my line, and silently steal away." 

" You are a sportsman of my own kidney," I 
rejoined " we have enough." 

Jim then emptied a pail of fish feed into the 
river, saying : 

" Dey'll guzzle all dat afore dark, and termor- 
rer dey'll come here and find nuthin', and dey'll 



THH OLD MAN'S STORY. 209 

go away, but shuah as death and 'ligeon dey'll be 
back here nex' Friday. Dis niggah skeert em 
de las' fo' weeks, a Thursdays." 

Jim grinned in my face as he said this, and I 
was forced to commend his prudence, though it 
had been at my cost. 

The following Thursday, I tried the hole, but 
Jim was right ; no fish took my bait ; he was 
seen, however, scudding along in Felden's out- 
rigger. He grinned at me and asked, " how is 
de holer' 

The following week, to my gratification, I 
found Mr. Felden on the river. We fished at 
" our hole " with some success : Jim then fed th^ 
fish, while his master informed me that he had 
concluded to go shares with me. Hereafter, he 
would meet me on Thursda^^ so as to enable me 
to gratify the Catholic appetites of my employ- 
ers. Thus he would have the pleasure of bet- 
tering our acquaintance. He paid me the com- 
pliment of saying that he had circled the globe, 
associating with men in all lands, and felt we 
ought to be friends. 

Our friendship grew into intimacy, before the 
season was over. He invited me to his den. It 
was a plain cottage, externally ; but within 
sumptuous ; skins of lions, tigers, leopards of 
every variety of spots, and of other animals 
covering the floors of hard wood at that time 



2IO A summer's outing. 

rarely seen. Several of the pelts, he said, were 
the trophies of his own skill with the rifle. The 
walls were tapestried with rare draperies, and 
rugs, all of them valuable souvenirs of Eastern 
lands. One room was given up to cabinets, in 
which curios and objects de vertu sparkled in ori- 
ental beauty. All was arranged with rare taste. 
I hinted to my host, that his house was a temp- 
tation to the burglar. He went to the door and 
whistled gently. In rushed two fine dogs ; no- 
ble specimens of monster mastiffs. 

" These are my guardians. Woe to the thief 
that gets into this house ; if he escapes Jim and 
me, these fellows would tear him into fish bait. 
Wouldn't you my Mogul?" One of the huge 
mastiffs sprang up with a growl that startled me. 

"Now Akbar ! 3^ou and Queen salute this 
gentleman. He is my friend and must be yours." 

The two dogs came up to me, smelt all about 
me, then one of them laid a great paw in my 
lap, while the other put both feet on my should- 
ers, yawning mightly in my face showed fangs 
long enough and strong enough to give the 
king of the forest no mean battle. 

I spent a charming evening with my new 
friend, and found him one I could gladly call 
such. 

During the following winter, I dined with 
Jack — I had accepted his request to address him 



THE OI.D man's story. 211 

thus familiarly — at least one day in each week. 
His dinners were at the then unusual hour of 
seven, a habit acquired as he informed me in 
India. Jim was butler, and Dinah, his wife was 
cook. She was an artist of a kind to be found 
nowhere in the world, outside of old southern 
plantation halls. The table service was of pure 
china and cut glass. The menu was never ex- 
tensive, thereby not conducing to over-indul- 
gence, but everything was perfect of its kind, and 
cooked absolutely to a " T ". A single bottle of 
wine was always served for us two, either of 
Rhine or one of the best clarets. My host and 
I never emptied more than two glasses each. 
At the end of each meal, Dinah and Jim came in 
as the table was being cleared off, and drank to 
our healths in glasses of the same set, and from 
the same wine used by the master. 

Mr. Felden never smoked cigars at table, but 
we each had a jasmine Turkish pipe and 
puffed delicious Ladikiyah, received by him 
from Beyrout in hermetically sealed cans. 

One evening when we were lolling back on 
softest chairs and enjoying to our full the frag- 
rant weed, Jack said to me, " Paul," (this was 
the fiust and almost the only time, he thus 
called me, " you have told me the sad, sweet 
story of your life. I propose, if you wish, to 
give you mine." 



212 A summer's outing. 

'' I am very glad of it, and have been hoping 
you would." 

For some minutes he was silent, and his noble 
face was lighted with what seemed an illumina- 
tion from within, wholly different from that laid 
upon it by the mellow glow from the candelabra. 

" I am thirty years old ; have light auburn 
and very curly hair." I started, for his hair 
and beard were dark brown, almost black, and 
without even a wave. Without noticing my 
surprise, he continued, " My complexion is florid 
and my face without a scar." 

" My goodness. Jack, you are making sport of 
me," I cried, for the man before me had a com- 
plexion of richest olive, and a terrible scar had 
been cut across his cheek, as he once laughingly 
intimated, by a tiger's claw. 

'' No, I am telling you simple facts. I am the 

son of a rich planter in ," he did not 

name the state ; " my father and my uncle 
owned adjoining estates of great value, and were 
as proud as they were rich. I was an only child. 
My uncle had but one, and that a daughter. Our 
parents inherited their fortunes from my grand- 
father, and at an early date they determined to 
unite the family wealth again by a marriage be- 
tween my cousin Belle and myself. She was a 
pure blonde, one year my senior, very stately, 
very cold, and intensely proud. We grew up 



THE OLD man's story. 213 

to consider ourselves as indissolubly betrothed. 
Belle treated it as calmly as if we had been mar- 
ried for years. This she did as soon as she was 
out of the school room. She never seemed to 
doubt the propriety of our engagement. She 
loved ' Clifton ' and ' Brandon ' — I will thus call 
the two plantations — she loved the two estates 
next to her father. Him she worshipped. These 
two loves filled her soul, and left no room for 
any other genuine affection. Yes ; she loved 
herself, our name, our lineage, and her pride." 

For awhile he was silent, and his soul seemed 
to be working in his face ; then, with a sigh of 
pain, he continued : 

" I graduated from one of the best colleges in 
the land at twenty, and at once with a learned 
tutor, was sent abroad. We traveled in conti- 
nental Europe for a few months and I was in- 
tensely happy. Before the first year had half 
ran out, we were summoned home. My father 
was ill, and would probably not live to see me. 
This was my first great pain, for my mother had 
died at my birth. We hurried to New York by 
the first steamer, then by rail and coach we flew 
southward without having heard a word from 
home. We were too late ; my poor father had 
been dead nearly a fortnight. I had loved him 
with intense devotion. 



214 A summer's outing. 

My uncle having died three years before, Belle 
had been living since then with my father at Clif- 
ton. She met me at the door, enveloped in black, 
and looking the very embodiment of decorous grief. 
She kissed me on the forehead, and when within 
told me in a voice as calm as ice of my poor father's 
last illness, of his death, and of the immensely at- 
tended funeral. She opened her waiting desk, 
read letter after letter of condolence, and with a 
fitting sigh spoke of the gratification we should 
feel, ' that dear uncle had so many admirers 
among the best people of the south.' Her well- 
poised calmness nearly stifled me. Yearning for 
love and sympathy, all I received from the only 
relative I had on earth, at least of near degree, 
were congratulations that my father had found 
in death the cold esteem of friends. 

" As soon as I could decently leave the house, 
I hurried to the negro quarters to see my foster 
mother, Dinah, and her husband, Jim. There I 
found loving hearts, and for many minutes was 
clasped in the arms of her who had nursed me 
on her bosom through my babyhood. I lay 
upon a settee, given Dinah by myself as a 
Christmas present years before, and with my 
head on the old negress' lap, let her comb the 
hair over my aching brow. Soothed and rested 
by the kind, homely sympathy, 1 lay with closed 
eyes, when the cabin became redolent of that pe- 



THE OLD man's story. 215 

culiar odor given out by genuine crepe, and 
Belle walked in. In calm, cold words she said 
she was sorry John could not find some one at 
the house to brush his head. 

" The next day my cousin handed me a letter, 
'the last,' she said ' Uncle had ever written.' It 
told me where I would find his will ; that every- 
thing he possessed was left to me, and asked, as 
a dying request, that I should marry my cousin 
the day I became twenty-one. He told me how 
all the love he had borne my mother had been 
centered upon me; gave me a few words of ad- 
vice, but said he felt advice unnecessary, as he 
knew how good his only son was. 

" When I had finished reading I handed the 
letter to Belle, saying there was something in it 
concerning her. I watched her through my fingers 
and saw that her reading was simply perfunc- 
tory ; she had evidently read it before. She 
sighed, came to my seat, put her arms about my 
neck — called me her dear John, and kissed me 
on the lips. I felt like one fettered and power- 
less. My heart was filled with a sort of numb- 
ness — despair. Two facts were as clear to me 
as daylight: that I did not love my cousin, that 
she did not love me ; she was incapable of real 
passion. I turned to her and said : 

'' ' Belle you have read my father's letter, 
what do you suggest ? ' 



2i6 A summer's outing. 

" ' Why, of course, John, we will be married 
on the 2oth day of February. We have a month 
to get ready, besides we need not much prepara- 
tion, for we will at once go to Europe for a year, 
until the sad events of the past few weeks shall 
have been obliterated from our minds.' 

"Good God! she could speculate on the death 
of grief. I hated her. But I would as soon 
have thought of exhuming my father's body and 
scattering it to the four winds of heaven, as to 
think of not obeying his wishes. 

" Well, we were married, and at once went 
abroad. I tried to and did respect my wife. She 
attracted great attention, for she was superbly 
beautiful — queenly. But there was never a mo- 
ment when I felt like pressing her stately form 
to my breast ; never had the slightest inclination 
to kiss her lips ; never once felt I could look 
into her great blue eyes, and breathe out my 
life on her bosom. 

" A marble statue would as quickly have 
aroused a feeling of passion in my heart. She 
was cold and did not seem to realize that I was 
not a model husband, for I was her attentive 
and watchful companion. She seemed thorough- 
ly satisfied, while my heart was hardening into 
stone. 

In July we visited a flower show in Regent's 
Park, accompanied by two English ladies, both 



THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 21/ 

married, romantic and full of sentiment. In our 
rounds, we met a lady in company with a gentle- 
man and a little boy. She was about eighteen 
years old, with dark melting eyes under a per- 
fectly arched brow, and a broad low forehead, 
over which her black hair was banded in massive 
silken waves. Her complexion was so deeply 
brunette as to be almost olive. The blood was 
rich and flowing in her cheeks, and her lips 
were two full ripe riven cherries, wdien she spoke 
parting over large pearly teeth. Her hand was 
exquisitely poised on shoulders of superb mould, 
and her form and gait queenly. We were on 
the opposite side of a wonderful erica admiring 
its masses of pink flowers. Our eyes met. I 
stood as if spell bound. I had never before seen 
a perfect beauty and all of my own chosen type. 
She was exactly my opposite, I, high florid ; she 
intensely brunette. 

The color came into her cheek and mounted 
to her very hair when she caught my fixed gaze. 
One of our English friends noticed this. After- 
wards in our walks, we met again and again the 
lady in the brown shawl — for so our friends 
called her. Whenever we met, my eyes in- 
stinctively sought those of the unknown, and 
always caught her glance in return, and at every 
such encounter her face crimsoned. This was 
remarked by our two lady friends and caused 



2l8 A summer's OUTliNTG. 

tliem to banter me. They told my wife to be on 
her guard ; that if I were not already married, 
they would say I had certainly met my fate. 

" Ah ! little did they dream they were speak- 
ing truth — that this girl was my fate for weal or 
for woe ! I heard the unknown's voice several 
times without catching her words. It sank into, 
my very soul. I became absent minded through- 
out the remainder of the day. Belle joined the 
ladies in declaring that the " brown shawl " had 
bewitched me. 

Mr. Jamison, I have a very decided theory of 
true marriage. The Bible is a mass of oriental 
rubbish ! Forgive me, I do not mean to offend. 
I reverence the bible, but not every word of it. 
It is made up of ingots of gold covered and al- 
most hidden within masses of sand — grains of 
truth and Godly wisdom, in bulks of chaff. It 
is made up of God's wisdom and oriental fable 
legend and poetry. You reverence the gold, the 
grains — the sands and the chaff. I wash out the 
sand, and pick out the gold ; winnow away the 
chaff, and gather up the rich grains. 

Nothing to me in the book of Genesis, reveals 
more deep knowledge of human nature, than the 
account of the creation of Adam ; he was made 
from the dust of the ground, and his soul was 
breathed into him by the breath of God. When 
a man dies, his body returns to the dust, his soul 



THE OLD MAN S STORY. 219 

goes back to its maker. God created man! male 
and female, created he tJiein ! They were then 
good. He afterward separated the female from 
the male. Each thus became imperfect — each 
became a part and not a whole. There is a 
constant yearning in them for reunion. When 
the true Eve unites with her Adam, the}^ become 
one, and their union is bliss. When so united, 
no man shall put them asunder. The union is 
founded directl}^ on natural and, not on moral or 
religious laws. The natural laws speak within, 
and draw irresistibl}^ two hearts to be mated. 
Whoever obeys the impulse find a Heaven on 
earth. Others, falsely-mated, may not find ab- 
solute miser}^, but, it is equall}^ certain, true 
happiness is never theirs. Men and women are 
made for each other ; not one man for one cer- 
tain woman, but in classes. ^ man finds his 
ph3^sicial mate in one of a certain class. If her 
moral qualities be not fitted by education, he 
should wait with a well grounded hope of find- 
ing another in the same class, whose bringing 
up will have better fitted her for him. 

Now, the woman in the broiun shawl was my 
mate, that is one of the proper class. I could 
not get her out of my mind, and my wife's cold- 
ness, constantly made me yearn for her. Travel 
was distasteful to Belle, so that before the fall 
had set in, we were again at home. I did not 



220 A summer's outing. 



love my wife, she did not love me. She was 
fully satisfied to live with me in the proud dig- 
nity given us by our vast estates. 

Besides his plantation, negroes and stock, my 
father had left me largel}^ over a hundred thous- 
and dollars in monev and convertible bonds and 
mortgages. I resolved to turn all of these into 
cash, and to abandon wife and country. I got all 
in readiness ; executed and left with my lawyers 
papers conveying every thing else to Belle ; 
went to New York on some pretended business 
and sailed for Europe, writing home that I 
would never return. I sought the American 
colonies and hotels in every countr}^, in a sort of 
vague hope that I could find the woman in the 
brown shawl. She was my fate. I was mad with 
the one idea. I was no libertine, Mr. Jamison. 
I simply yearned for her, not asking what the 
result would be should she be found. I drifted 
into the East and wandered through Russia, 
Turkey, Greece, Palestine and Egypt. I did 
not meet her ; and could get no tidings of her. 



CHAPTER II. 

I resolved to lose myself in the far East. I 
went to India ; hnnted in the jungles, reckless 
of life and danger. I was successful in overcom- 
ing the monsters of the wilds ; and escaped 
dreadful fevers because I seemed to bear a 
charmed life. It was worthless to me, and a 
bad penny could not be lost. 

In India I met with a cunning native, who 
changed my locks from light to their present 
color, curly to straight ; my complexion from 
florid to its olive hue. He taught me how to put 
a scar on my cheek that would deceive the eyes 
of a surgeon, but from which I could at any time 
free myself in a single night, and renew at will. 
So perfectly was my disguise, that my Indian 
servant, who had been with me for a year, failed 
to recognize me. He never knew me again. 
With my skin I changed my name. I was a 
stranger even when in my most frequented 
haunts, and as 3^ou see, am still disguised. I 
visited Siam, Burmah, China and Borneo. I 
wandered five years in the far East, and returned 
to America by the Pacific and Panama, and thence 
to New Orleans. 

In that city, I went to a Mardi-Gras ball. On 
entering the brilliant assembly room, I was al- 

221 



222 A summer's OUTING. 

most stunned by the sight of my wife, standing 
close by my side. She looked at me without re- 
cognition. She was the same cold, queenly 
woman. I was presented and talked to her of her 
husband, whom I had met in the far East. She 
seemed considerably interested in me, but did 
not evince the slightest emotion when I spoke of 
her husband and told her I had heard of his 
death in India. She said in chilling tones she 
felt sure it was a false rumor. Had she shown 
any feeling, I think I would have tried to get 
her into my heart. 

I went to my old home, and pretending to be 
shooting and belated, went to Jim Madison's 
cabin about sun-down and talked to him and 
Dinah. Neither of them recognized me, but when 
her back was to me I spoke ; she started, for my 
voice reached her memory. They were both true 
to Mars John, whom I told them I had known at 
college. Dinah shed bitter tears, because she 
could never see him again, and Jim would be 
like Simeon of old, if his eyes could rest upon 
him once more. They were to be trusted. 

I went to the cabin door and finding there was 
no one in the neighborhood, I drew my hat over 
my face and said in my natural voice: ''Jim, 
Dinah, don't you know me?" 

They sprang to me at once, with a cry, '' Oh 
bress de Lord, it's him, — it's him — it's Mars 



THE OLD man's story. 223 

John" and for minutes I was pressed in their 
arms, while they shed tears and gave thanks to 
the good God. The two lowly hearts were true as 
steel to me, and would be willing to follow me to 
the ends of the earth. Jim was a teamster and 
had to draw a load of cotton to the nearest steam 
boat landing on the following day. 

In my bo^^hood his aquatic qualities won my 
admiration and were the wonder of the negroes 
for many miles around. To my inquiry as to his 
ability in that line now, he proudly stated that 
" he was a duck a-top the water, an' a musrat 
under it." I then told him to be on the lookout, 
when on the wharf boat the next day ; that I 
would be there ; would manage to tumble into 
the river ; he was to rescue me, and out of grati- 
tude I would purchase him and Dinah, and take 
them north to freedom. 

We performed our comedy admirably. Water 
could scarcely drown me, for from childhood, I 
had been a water-dog, and when Jim made his 
wonderful dive, and brought me from the bot- 
tom, to which I had conveniently sunken the 
third time, I acted the drowmed man so well, 
that the negroes around nearly killed me by 
rolling me on a barrel to get the water out of my 
stomach. I managed to be properly resusci- 
tated, and in three days Jim and Dinah, paid for, 
were on their way north. They had no children, 



2 24 A summer's outing. 

and left no ties behind. Jim says, " he is a 
bigger slave than ever, for I am always on his 
mind." 

We reached Cincinnati last spring, and I feel 
certain my identity can never be discovered. I 
have my two oldest earthly friends with me, and 
now my newest, and almost only other one. I am 
trying to recover a part of my fortune, for I had 
but little left when I reached this city. I came 
here because, the only words I ever distinctly 
caught from my brown shawled mate and her 
companions were, when the boy said, "but Cin- 
cinnati, you know" that was all. I am 

here making a little money speculating in grain; 
using Jim's rheumatism to inform me as to 
weather probabilities and if prices will go up or 
down — and keeping my eyes alwa^^s open for the 
only woman I have ever seen whom I can love. 

" And now fill up your chilbouque and let us 
have a glass of beer." He rang a bell and told 
Jim to open a couple of bottles of ale. 

I was deeply impressed by the story — more 
so, than I cared my friend to see. To open up a 
light vein of conversation I asked : 

" What was that you said abou Jim's rheuma- 
tism ?" 

" I spoke in earnest;" answered Jack, "last 
summer and fall I used Jim's ankles to tell me 
if the weather would be favorable for crops. He 



THE OLD man's STORY. 225 

believes implicitly in his rheumatic prognostica- 
tions. To humor h-im I follow his advice, and 
so far have never failed to make a good deal by 
so doing. 

I thanked Felden for his story, and went home 
pondering upon his notions and pluck. It was 
strange to see a man who evidently so enjoyed 
lavish luxury, living as he did, when a beautiful 
w4fe, a vast fortune and high position were wait- 
ing for him, whenever he should acknowledge 
his proud name. 

Toward the end of the winter, a messenger 
brought me, from Mr. Felden a request for the 
address of a first class physician, and telling me 
Dinah was much indisposed. The next evening 
I dropped in at his house, but he begged to be 
excused. The message brought to the door by 
Jim, made me feel my visits were not desired for 
the time being. Ten days elapsed without any 
news from him, when I met Dr. J. and inquired 
as to the condition of his dusky patient. 

" Oh ! ho ! Then I owe to you this new patient ! 

I stated the circumstances. 

" Well, Mr. Jamison, I thank you, for I have 
had a revelation at that bedside, for which I 
would not take a thousand dollars." 

I expressed gratification and some surprise. 

"You know," the genial doctor continued, 
'' you know that I am an old time abolitionist, 
and one of the straightest kind." 



226 A summer's outing. 

I replied, I had often regretted tlie fact. 
Scarcely noticing my remark he went on : 

'' I have received a revelation, Mr. Jamison, 
and one that God willing ! will make me a more 
charitable — a braver, perhaps a better man. 
Think of it sir : I went to see this black woman, 
expecting to find her in charge of some other ig- 
norant woman of her color. But instead of that, 
there was an elegant gentleman sitting at her 
bed side ; his hand was upon her hot forehead, 
and every now and then he whispered, " Don't 
be afraid Mammy, little John is by you, and he 
will take care of you." The poor creature was 
delirious. She thought herself on a southern 
plantation, and that some one was trying to do 
her bodily harm. 

"When I stepped forward, he motioned me to 
be still. I am generally an autocrat in a sick 
room, but that man's look and gesture made me 
a regular sucking babe." 

I laughed at the thought. 

" You needn't laugh, sir. I am telling God's 
truth. Well ! when he had quieted her, he took 
me into an adjoining room, and gave me his di- 
agnosis of the case. It was the opinion of a man 
of science, absolutely correct. I left my prescrip- 
tion, promising to be on hand as early as pos- 
sible the next raorning. Would you believe it, 
sir, I was there before day-light? I wanted to 



THK OLD man's story. 227 

see that man. I found him seated as he had been 
the night before, and learned he had been there 
ever since I left. She was still out of her 
head. 

Something she said caused the gentleman to 
say, "She must be saved. She and her husband 
are all that are left to me of a great plantation 
and five hundred negroes." 

"Instead of feeling disgust for the owner of 
five hundred human beings, I felt they had lost 
a friend when they lost their master. For a 
whole week, that man never took off his clothes, 
and as far as I could see, never left that lowly 
bed side. I never saw such devotion. It pulled 
her through ; my drugs were a humbug, sir. 
That Christian gentleman saved her life." 

The doctor took off his hat and mopped his 
brow. It was wet from the energy of his 
speech. 

" It was a revelation to me, sir. Think of it ! 
A man can own human beings, and still be a 
Christian. If our Saviour has a true follower on 
this earth, that born slave owner is of his chosen 
ones." 

I told this to Felden a few days later. He 
smiled and said, "I thank the good doctor. 
Don't tell him I am a worshipper of the one un- 
known, and unknownable God. I reverence Jesus 
of Nazareth — I reverence Sidartha, the Buddh — 



228 A summer's outing. 

I reverence Zoroaster. They were the greatest 
of men, whom long meditation sublimated and 
lifted above their kind. But there is onl}^ one 
God. No one of woman born, ever could, or can 
conceive his form. 

The best and purest Christian I ever met was 
a Hindoo, not only in race, but in religion. Yet, 
he was a Christian in the true sense of the word. 
He lived and acted the life inculcated by Jesus. 
The next best was a Parsee worshipper of the 
sun. He did unto his kind as he would they 
should do unto him. He clothed the naked, fed 
the hungry and healed the sick ; yet he gave the 
body of his beautiful and idolized daughter to 
be devoured by vultures on theTower of Silence. 
One of the genuine Christians I have met, was a 
Chinaman, who worshipped Joss, and daily knelt 
at a shrine erected to him in the back of his shop. 
He washed the wounds of a stranger, and nursed 
him for weeks, though his house was shunned 
as the home of pestilence. 

"Forgive them Father, they know not what 
they do," might be offered up in behalf of fully 
one half of the good people of this christian land. 
They wrap themselves up in their egotism and 
their bigotry. The^^ follow the blind lead of nar- 
row minded preachers and make the pulpit their 
fetich. Bah ! how I hate cant and h3^pocricy ! 
Poor Dinah is as black as the ace of spades, but 



THE OLD man's STORY. 229 

under her dusky breast is as white a soul as 
ever came from the breath of God ; and I am 
supposed to be a good man, simply because I did 
not leave her to die like a crippled dog." 

" No, Mr. Jamison, I am no better than I ought 
to be. Dinah nursed me on her breast and fed 
me from her life's blood, when I was helpless. I 
was only a man when I nursed her through this 
illness. I came to tell you she is nearly well 
again- and Jim wishes 3^ou to eat a dinner of his 
cooking to-morrow evening. Good day." And 
with that he showed me his straight back and 
massive shoulders as he walked with swinging 
strides from the store. 

We commenced fishing in March and spent 
many a pleasant hour together, on the water by 
day, and in his den at evening. Early in ^lay, 
I went as per agreement to dine with him. Jim 
handed me a note. It read, "Dear Jamison, go 
in and make the most of the dinner. I am off 
for how long, I know not. I met to-da}^, my fate 
of the brown shawl. I follow wherever it may 
lead me, never to stop until my doom be 
found. 

Yours, in the height of foll}^, 

Jack." 

Jim informed me his master had come in a 
half hour before ; after hurriedl^^ filling a valise 
and satchel, he had jumped into the carriage, 



230 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

whicli brought him home, saying " Goodbye old 
folks, take care of the dogs, and expect me 
home, when you see me." 

Jim added, '' He's all right up here sah," 
touching his head, " but his heart's sort'er crazy." 

I could scarcely taste the food, for I felt that 
there was over Jack, and thus over me, an im- 
pending disaster. I had become deeply attached 
to him. One knowing the intense nature of 
the man could not but fear he was following 
an ignis fatuus to his doom. Here was a 
married man, who had schooled his heart and 
reason to the belief he was not wedded — that his 
marriage was a fiction of the law, and not bind- 
ing on his conscience. I was a religious man, 
and shudderd lest my friend with his marvel- 
ous fascinations, and goaded by a mad passion, 
might do some act abhorrent to my notions of 
right. 

Days and weeks of uneasiness on my own 
part, and apparently of distress on the part of 
the two colored servants passed by, without a 
word from the absent one. At first I went to 
his house repeatedly to rest and to think of him, 
but finally satisfied myself with inquiries at the 
door. 

About two months after his disappearance, it 
became necessary for me to make a journey to a 
distant state in the interest of our house, I was 



THE OLD man's STORY. 23 1 

absent over a fortnight. Immediately upon my 
return, I visited the den (I had learned to call it 
thus). A white woman met me at the door with 
the information that she was the present tenant. 
She knew nothing of the late occupants, but re- 
ferred me to a real estate firm as her landlords. 
I went to them. They knew nothing of the late 
tenants of the cottage, farther than, that Mr. 
Jack Felden had sent them the keys, and the 
rent to the end of the term. They found the 
premises in fine condition, but nothing to indi- 
cate where the people had gone. 

It was evident that Felden had, what he con- 
sidered good reasons for not communicating 
with me. I was sure he sincerely liked me, and 
would not thus act, uuless he desired to cover 
his tracks. I respected his wishes and did not 
afterwards refer to him. Desiring to work off 
my anxiety I went to the river for a hard trial at 
rowing. The man in charge of my boat handed 
me a note written he said, by himself at Jim's 
dictation. It simply said, " Mars Jack axes you 
to take his canoe for yersef. He won't want it 
no more. Good bye, sah, may de Lord be good 
to you, for Mars Jack loved you. 

his 

Jim X Madison 

mark" 



2 32 A summer's outing. 

I soon learned to scull the outrigger called by 
Jim, canoe, and used it for years, but its late 
owner was seen by me no more in Cincinnati. 
By degrees I ceased to expect Him again. I 
often thought of him, and a prayer for his hap- 
piness, became a part of my nightly supplica- 
tion, before the throne of grace. 



CHAPTER III. 

Nearly a year after Felden's disappearance, I 
was surprised by the following letter from him : 
^'Dear old Jamison : 

I know you thought and think me a scape 
grace, but when you read what I shall write, you 
will forgive me as a simple madcap. To get you 
into a proper state of mind, I will at once pro- 
ceed a tale to unfold. 

The day of my departure from Cincinnati, I 
went to the Burnett to discuss a business venture 
with a guest of the house. He was in the din- 
ing-room at 5 o'clock dinner. I sat by his side 
discussing our business, when I was startled by 
the tones of a voice near by. I sought it. 
There just opposite to me the "brown shawl'' 
was being seated. An elderly lady accompanied 
her. 

My vis-a-vis, was a young girl, not over eigh- 
teen, but in every respect the woman I met in 
'50, at the flower-show in Regent's Park. There 
was one difference it is true — in her coiffure ; as 
I took it, the result of change of fashion. So 
vividly was the photograph of years ago im- 
pressed on my memory, and so exactly was it 
copied, that the incongruity of time and added 
years never crossed my brain. I was dazed by 

233 



234 A summer's outing. 

the sudden apparation of my dream. No thought 
entered my mind that it was contrary to the laws 
of nature, that a woman of i8 in '50 was still 
only 18 now ; nor did the idea occur to me that 
I was laboring under an hallucination, or was 
the victim of mistaken identity. The woman I 
had worshipped for long years was there before 
me, in every feature the same as memor^r 
pictured her. She was no older, and was altered 
only as change of fashion had altered her. I 
did not reason on the subject. 

I overheard that the two ladies were on their 
way to Boston ; and were to leave on the 7:30 
train, going East. They examined a time table, 
and speculated as to their stops for meals before 
reaching their destination. The elder was ad- 
dressed as "Auntie," the younger one as "Rita." 

In an hour I was at the station with my lug- 
gage. I saw them enter the cars, and knew 
whenever they left it at eating stations. At Bos- 
ton I made my cab driver follow their carriage 
and took the number of the dwelling and the 
name of the street. The next day I watched 
the house. At noon Rita with a lady, both in 
calling costume took a carriage at the door, and 
Rita, for so I already called her in my thoughts 
threw a kiss to a child who had followed them 
from the house. 



THE OLD man's story. 235 

I determined this was her home, and felt no 
longer any necessity for constant watching. To- 
wards sundown I was was walking in the Com- 
mon, where she and I met face to face. She 
looked at me, but as one to her an indifferent 
stranger. A girl, probably of five years was her 
companion. While the latter sailed a toy boat 
on the pond, the young lady sat on a seat not 
far awa3^ 

The little girl dropped her hat in the water, 
and called out, " Oh, Aunt Rita ! I've lost my 
hat." They tried to reach it with her parasol. 
I ran to a man raking grass, took his rake and 
rescued the hat. When I put it on the child's 
head, the aunt thanked me, with a smile that 
was a ray of sunshine. Her voice, modulated to 
express thanks, was simply music. 

Resolved to take advantage of any and every 
opportunity to make her acquaintance, I took 
off my hat saying, "Pardon me, but we have met 
before. It was in London, in 1850." 

She replied, with a smile, "Your memory must 
be wonderful, for at that time, I was — let me see — 
and she counted the years on her fingers, "I was 
then nine years old, and very small for my age." 
I was dumbfounded, for as yet I had not thought 
of the anachronism I had been guilty of. I said, 
" it is strange" — my voice sounded hollow to my- 
self — "but a young lady, your very image, I met 



236 A summer's outing. 

a dozen times, and what is stranger still, she wore 
the self same brown shawl which covered your 
shoulders at the Burnett house, a few days since." 
She did not notice my allusion to the Burnett 
house but burst out in a hearty laugh and clapped 
her hands so loudly, that the little girl ran to her. 

" I see it all," she cried ; " Minnie, my sister, 
was in London that year, and wore that shawl. 
Her picture was taken in it about the same time, 
and when I grew up I was so wonderfully like 
her, that she gave it to me ; when I fix my hair 
as hers was, and put on that wrap, every one de- 
clares the picture to be the very image of my- 
self. 

I had broken the ice rather unconventionally, 
and was determined not to recede. I said "But 
she was with her father and a little boy." I felt 
I was treading on thin ice, but if it were not her 
father, I would manage in some way to get out 
of my mistake. 

"Yes!" she replied. "Yes! my poor dear 
father and dear little Ralph were with her. I 
was at school at home. Poor papa — poor Ralph." 
Her eyes became suffused. "Papa and Minnie 
went abroad for brother Ralph's health. Poor 
boy, he did not live to get home, and papa died 
the next year." 

It was not right, but I could not resist it. I 
knew that grief admits a friend more readily 



THE OLD MAN'vS STORY. 237 

than gaiety, so I said: " Yes ! Ralph looked 
very frail, but your father was the picture of 
health. I was abroad after that for several 
years and lost sight of them." 

She paused a while, and then continued, 
"dear papa was never sick, but his troubles broke 
his heart and killed him. You know it was a 
terrible thing to be cheated of all he possessed 
by the man he thought his best friend." 

I saw she had an idea, I had known her father 
and of his affairs. I was villian enough not to 
undeceive her. What is more, I felt I had a 
right to be free with this girl. I had worshipped 
her sister for years, and in every land. She and 
her sister were now become as one, and that one 
was designed by nature for me. 

The child ran up and pulled her hand. "Lets 
go home, aunt Rita, I am hungry." 

She arose, and nodding me a polite good even- 
ing, said: 

" I suppose you will come to see Minnie. 

Her house is No. . My aunt and I are 

visiting her." 

I promised to do so, and passed a sleepless 
night, racking my brain to discover some way 

of getting into No. -without taking advantage 

of this sweet girl's unconventional innocence. 
Could I tell a lie ? Would it be a lie to excuse 
myself on the plea of having a slight acquaint- 



23S A SUMMER^S- OUTING. 

ance with the dead father? I lived a lie ; was 
indeed a living lie, but I had as yet to my recol- 
lection never uttered a direct one. 

On the next day I called, asking for the la- 
dies. I sent in a card with an assumed name 
and wrote under it, "An acquaintance of years 
ago." Rita and Mrs. Wilton, her sister, came in 
together. I stood for several minutes speech- 
less. There were the two sisters. Apparently 
there was ten years difference in their ages, and 
the disparity was patent. Yet I looked from 
one to the other, and for a while was hardly able 
to determine that it was the elder I had pre- 
viously met. I hid my confusion. They seemed 
never to question my having been a friend of 
their father. Neither evinced the slightest emo- 
tion when our eyes met. I had while abroad, the 
entre of many noble houses. I used this fact as 
a sort of credential and succeeded so well that 
Mr. Wilton called at my hotel and invited me to 
diue with his family. 

The visit was repeated ; and I was well re- 
ceived. I honored the wife — but loved the young 
sister. It seemed to me it was she I had been 
carrying all of these years in my heart ; and I 
did not stop to think what all this might lead to. 
When I changed my skin in India I became the 
man I pretended to be. I was the homeless Jack 
Felden. I was madly infatuated, and what may 



THE OLD man's story. 239 

seem strange, while I trembled when I looked at 
or touched the younger sister, I felt not a single 
tremor, when the elder walked to a concert at 
night with her hand on my arm ; not an emo- 
tion, when she looked me in the face. I loved 
her years ago, I loved her sister now because 
she and her sister had become one, and that one 
was the younger. 

I watched Rita and could not find that I 
aroused one single feeling of reciprocation in her 
breast. I grew mad at the thought, and at uight 
cried aloud in agony. Was it true — could it be 
true, that after all, I was nothing to this woman 
who, I believed, was made for me? 

I spoke one day of the episode at the flower 
show, intimating nothing which could connect 
them with it. Alinnie told how she, too, once had 
fallen in love the same way ; suddenly she 
started and fixed her eyes on my black hair and 
olive hue. The look seemed to recall her ; she 
had no suspicion. 

I pondered on the thing. Years ago my 
glance sent the blood crimson to her brow. The 
sister now affected me as she had formerly done, 
but I seemed to be nothing to her. I spent 
sleepless nights trying to account for this. I 
reached the conclusion at last that love — passion- 
ate love, was a physicial as well as a spiritual 



240 A summer's outing. 

emotion ; that I was wearing a mask covering 
my true self, and to win Rita I must unmask. 

I have told you I could remove and replace 
my scar in a day, but to change the color of my 
hair or complexion requires from four to six 
months. I learned that Rita, with her aunt, 
whom I did not meet, would return to their home 
in Tennessee within a month, and she would 
then be a village fixture for perhaps a year. I 
grew madly jealous lest some one should love 
and win her before I could appear properly be- 
fore her. 

I swore to have her, and when won, I felt sure 
she would never change, but would wait and 
wait until she could be mine. I bade the sisters 
goodbye with a heavy heart — all the heavier, 
because on their part leave-taking was only 
kindly. 

I hurried to Cincinnati ; avoided places where 
I could meet you ; gathered together my guns 
and fishing-tackle, my cosmetics and wardrobe 
sufficient for several months absence; arranged 
my bank account and went to Chicago, where I 
thought the Ethiopian might change his skin 
without observation. Jim being able to read my 
writing when in plain characters, was directed 
to pack up all my valuables and to hold himself 
in readiness to come to me at once on receipt of 
a letter. 



THE OLD man's STORY. 241 

He and his wife finall}^ joined me. I sent 
him to Tennessee to learn the lay of the land in 
the town in which Rita'a annt resided. To escape 
any difficulties a Northern negro might encounter 
in a small Southern town, he went as a boat 
hand on a steamer running from St. Louis ; 

managed to get sick when was reached, 

and was necessarily put ashore. In a month he 
returned full of the information I desired. 

I learned that the father of the two sisters, 
Mr. Dixon, had been a wealth}^ merchant in one 
of the large southern cities. He was an English- 
man by birth and had lost his wife, a high-born 
Spanish lady, when Rita was a small child. 
They had no relations in America, except the 
aunt, under whose care the youngest daughter 
was living and upon whom she was dependent. 
When the family w^as in England for Ralph's 
health in '50, the partner of Mr. Dixon contrived 
to raise a very large sum of money and de- 
camped. Mr. Dixon reached home to find him- 
self an absolute pauper. The blow prostrated 
him, and in a few months he was laid beside his 
wife. Rita had only a village education, but 
was a great reader and a good musician. Her 
aunt, Mrs. Allen, had been governess in a noble- 
man's house in England, was literary and de- 
cidedly uppish and withal intensely avaricious. 



242 A SUMMER^S OUTING. 

Mr. Wilton was the Boston correspondent of 
the mined firm, and in the course of settling with 
it met and won Minnie. Rita's aunt, or rather, 
aunt-in-law, the widow of her father's only 
brother, took charge of her and made her home 
an unhappy one, not by direct unkindness, but 
by her querulous, carping and sarcastic disposi- 
tion and manner. She would long since have 
gone to her sister but for a dislike of Wilton, 
who, though most kind to his wife, was a selfish 
man, and had given his young sister-in-law some 
great offense for which the Spanish blood, so hot 
in her veins, forbade forgiveness. 

I do not remember ever to have told you that 
•Jim Madison, the obedient servant and devoted 
slave of his once master, is a man of great 
native intellect. When a boy, I taught him to 
read a little and in Cincinnati spent much time 
trying to educate him. He was wonderfully apt 
and occasionally with strangers uses good Eng- 
lish, but with me and my intimates prefers to be 
the negro servant and to use plantation language. 
He is intensely loving, absolutely honest, and at 
times startles me by an almost savage dignity 
inherited through a short line from his African 
forefathers. Reared among a thousand negroes, 
for Clifton and Brandon people mingled almost 
as if of one plantation — jolly and light in his 
heart, he courted popularity among his kind and 



THE OLD man's STORY. 243 

became one of the most astute diplomats. I 
love him as my servant and honor him as a 
true and honest man ; respect, and if he were 
not my friend, would almost fear him as a shrewd, 
self poised, ever alert diplomatist. I had known 
his qualities before, yet the thoroughness of his 
information brought me from - amazed me. 

He managed to get a job of sawing a load of fire- 
wood and packing it in the aunt's yard, and from 
that he became domiciled in a room over the 
kitchen. With his open but shrewd honesty, he 
became almost a confident of Miss Rita. 

You who have never lived in the South cannot 
understand how closely drawn together are kind 
masters and mistresses and humble but faithful 
servants. 

The cunning Hindoo who gave me my raven 
locks and olive complexion, gave me also in- 
gredients to restore my original appearance more 
rapidly than nature, unassisted, would do, and 
at the same time, cosmetics, which would enable 
me to conceal the change while going on. The 
effects of the cosmetics were entirely temporary, 
and easily removable. 

When Jim returned, I was ready to reassume 
my skin. When emerging from my bath one 
morning, I was no longer Jack Felden, but John 

of Clifton, ^. Jim and Dinah shed 

tears of joy, crying together " Bress de Lord! oh 



244 A summer's outing. 

bress de Lord — its Mars John — its hisself 
shuah "; and they hugged me again and again. 

Dinah sat down in a rocking chair and said, 
" Come to Mammy, honey ; jes let Mammy nuss 
her baby boy one more time, and I'se ready to go 
to glory. 

I lay my head on the loving creature's lap, 
while she combed out my hair and tried to curl 
it around her fingers. The curls of my youth, 
however, were gone forever. 

When I looked into the glass, and saw my 
changed appearance, a sudden revulsion of feel- 
ing came over me. I was John : I was 

the unhappy husband of my cold cousin. A 
gulf arose between Rita and myself. How dare 
I think of winning the love of that pure girl ! 
I, who was bound by the law of man to another, 
even though my reason and my heart told me, I 
was free. So thoroughly had I indentified my- 
self with the character of Jack Felden, while 
wearing his hair and complexion, that the recol- 
lection of my real name and position was blurred. 
It is true, my unfortunate marriage w^as never 
entirely forgotten, but I felt myself a new man, 
with new lights and different possibilities. The 
husband of Belle had become an unreal shadow — 
the figment of a disordered imagination. The life 
I had been living for years began in the Bengalee 
village, when the cunning Hindoo made me a 



THE OLD man's story. 245 

stranger to my servant — all before that was a 
dream. Now having laid aside my mask, I was 
the dead man come back to life, with all his 
memories and his hated ties. 

I took long walks at night out into the open 
country. I fought the demon of memory ; I 
fought the commands of conscience. But con- 
science would not down. The blood spot would 
not out. Despair filled me. 

Aided by my temporary cosmetics, I again be- 
came Jack Felden, but the change was only par- 
tial. My glass told me I was he, my conscience 

w^hispered, I was John . Mine was a dual 

being. The hopes of the masquerader were de- 
pressed by the fears of the real man. I decided 
to send Jim to Clifton to learn something of Belle, 
resolved if she were still clinging to her pride, 
to speculate boldly — to win a fortune and give 
it to Rita as a restitution coming from her 
father's swindler. 

You know something of my success in Cin. 
cinnati. Jim had been my lucky stone ; his 
rheumatic limbs were my barometer, telling 
me what the season would be from week to week, 
and though I did not believe in it, I had specu- 
lated on what his joints foretold and was now 
the possessor of a fair competency — I would 
risk my all, court fortune's smile to make or 
break. If fortune should favor me, all would be 



246 A summer's outing. 

Rita's ; I would avoid her forever ; if the fickle 
jade failed me, Jim and I could gain a livelihood 
in new endeavors. 

While shedding my skin, I had made several 
small successful ventures in corn and wheat. 
Jim and I put our heads together (or rather, I 
put my head to his shins) and we arrived at con- 
clusions, which should lead to wealth, or to pov- 
erty. I put aside a couple of thousands for Jim 
and Dinah, staking all the rest of my fortune 
in margins. I won from the first. I pushed 
my luck with reckless daring, turning my profits 
into margins and new ventures. At the end of 
two weeks, my means were doubled. 

I was eating my dinner — one of the best Dinah 
ever prepared — when Akbor and Queen watch- 
ing me close by my chair, suddenly sprang up, 
and rushed to the. door whining and uttering 
low barks. Jim entered, to be overthrown by 
the delighted animals. Gathering himself up 
quickly, he held out his hand to me, an unusual 
familiarity, for Jim is my friend, yet my slavish 
servant, and rarely loses the demeanor of the 
servant. 

" Bress de Lord, Mars Jack ; shout glory hal- 
lelujer Dineh, you black niggar ! We'se free! 
and created equal as shuah as Tom Jeffersom 
printed de declaratium!" 



THE OLD man's story. 247 

I made him sit down and tell his story. He 
told me all he thought of interest regarding the 
dear home of my childhood. 

I tried to get him to the point on which I 
most desired information, but he could not be 
induced to alter the thread of his narration in the 
least detail. Finally I learned that Belle, who 
had gone abroad twelve months before, was to be 
married in a month to an Italian Lord. 

^'Jess think of it Dineh — git it through yo' 
wool, ole gal. — over dah dey calls men lords. I 
don't wonnah dat Sodum and Gomorrah was 
guv up to fire and brimstone. I specks dar 
was lords in dem days. The reel Lord will make 
Miss Belle a piller of salt — shuah ! stick dat in 
yo' craw, Dineh — dar is one Lord, and he tells 
us in de book, dat he am a jellus God." 

Jim then spread before me a newspaper printed 

in It announced, as a most important 

event — "That the beautiful and queenly Mrs. 

Belle whose husband, Mr. John 

had mysteriously disappeared in 185-, supposed 
to have died of cholera in India, had become a 
Catholic and was about to be married to the 

Marquis of in Rome. Mrs. 

had with hopeful love for her husband, for all 
these years refused to credit the report of his 
death ; even now, she was unwilling to act on in- 
formation she had gained at great expense, from 



248 A summer's outing. 

India ; information which every one else thought 
thoroughly reliable. She had therefore applied 
to the Pope for a dispensation ; that as soon as 
the formalities necessary at the Vatican were 
completed, she would at once become the Mar- 

chionness of . The marriage was to 

occur on the day — —Just one month from 

the day of the publication of this paper." 

Oh Jamison, old fellow, that was a happy 
hour for me. I had that day closed very success- 
ful deals. I was almost rich and could win and 
wear Rita. I did not for a moment doubt she 
would be mine, for I honestly believed her my 
mate. All impatience to fly to her, I made an 
arrangement to travel south for a Chicago firm, 
to be paid out of commission alone. Jim in- 
formed me that Rita's aunt sometimes rented 
her front parlor and a bed-room attached, to 
traveling men with samples; that it was a source 
of much mortification to the niece, for the el- 
derly lady was rich and had no children, rent- 
ing the room out of pure avarice. I resolved to 
lease it, for it would bring me close to Rita and 
would arouse her animosity, out of which I would 
snatch victory. 

I washed every vestige of Jack Felden from 
my hair and skin, but put a scar on my cheek, 
which with a full beard and straight hair, I 
thought would insure me against all recognition, 



THE OLD man's STORY. 249 

should chance bring me in contact with some 
one I had known in early manhood. On reach- 
ing , leaving my luggage and sample boxes 

at the wharf, I went at once to the home of the 
aunt; secured the rooms and agreed to pay a 
large price for my breakfast and supper in the 
house. Thus the best of treatment was secured, 
for the avaricious old lad}^ would try to keep me 
as long as possible. 

My first meal in the house, was supper. 
When Rita came to the table, she scarcely 
deigned to notice me. She disliked me for taking 
the parlor. 

Mrs. Allen, the aunt, was a screw, but she was 
an epicure. Her old cook was an artist. Like 
all genuine gourmets, the old lady was a table 
talker, and a good one. I resolved to return 
Miss Rita's disdain, by ignoring her presence, 
and if possible to arouse her interest in me, 
against her will. 

When the aunt served me with tea, she said: 

"Mr. Felden, there is a cup which I am sure 
you cannot equal in Chicago. New made people 
can soon become good judges of coffee, but a 
connoiseur in tea must have blue blood in his 
veins." 

"I do not boast a long line of ancestry," I re- 
joined, "but my palate must be the heritage of 
good blood, for I enjoy the Chinese drink 



250 A summer's outing. 

greatly, and am very particular as to the brand. 
There is only one country in the world where 
good tea is almost universal. A bad cup in Rus- 
sia, I found the exception." 

"Ah," she said, "but it is in England, that it 
is always above the average." 

"Yes," I acknowledged, "as a food, not as a 
beverage. English tea is good to eat — that is to 
mix with, and wash down your muffins. In 
Russia tea is a drink, and is even jealous of a 
thing so coarse as sugar. I learned there to put 
into my cup only a soupcon of sweet." 

"You have been in the land of the Czar then, 
have 3^ou?" 

"I spent some time within his dominions," I 
replied. 

"You have been a traveler, then I suppose. 
What other countries have you visited ? Pardon 
my seeming impertinence, but I have found it a 
good beginning to an acquaintance, to learn 
where each has been. I have myself, wandered 
considerably, but only in Europe." 

"I have visited nearly every European land;" 
I said, for I was determined to please her and at 
the same time to win the attention of the niece, 
who so far, had only noticed me by casual 
glances, " have hunted the tiger in Indian jun- 
gles and laved my limbs in holy Ganges among 
its devotees." 



THE OLD MANS STORY. 25 1 

"OH, how charming!" the good lady ex- 
claimed. '' I thought I was getting only a lib- 
eral lodger and I find I may be entertaining a 
savant." 

" To get myself on the best footing, dear 
Madam," I rejoined," I will sa}^ I have straddled 
the equator, and have used the Arctic Circle for 
a trapeze." 

She clapped her hands, saying, "That's capi- 
tal, is it not, Rita ? What else, and where else, 
Mr. Traveler ? " 

" In Burmah I have ogled beauties with huge 
cigars piercing the lobes of their ears, and have 
worshipped Soudanise ladies closely veiled on the 
upper Nile, awakening from my dream of adora- 
tion to find the Yashmac of my divinities cover- 
ing ebony coloured features." 

" Go on, dear sir, go on, I am wrapt in pro- 
found attention," and the old wizened eyes 
sparkled with pleasure. 

" I have been in ," I glanced at Rita, she 

was listening with intense interest ; I grew 
ashamed of the game and paused. But know^ing 
how a woman's nature clothes the mysterious 
man in brightest garments, and is ready to find 
the prince in beggar's raiment, I resolved to 
show her a despised drummer, who had been in 
all lands, and even an actor in wild and danger- 
ous adventures. 



252 A summer's outing. 

" I have crossed the dark teak forests of Siam, 
where jungle fever kills its victims in a single 
day, and escaped its venom by swallowing qui- 
nine by the handful and b}^ sleeping in the 
houdah on my elephant's back. A single night 
on the ground would have been death." 

Rita changed her seat to become m}^ vis-a-vis 
and from then never removed her e\^es from my 
face. 

I continued : "In Cambodia I lived a week in 
a grand palace, surrounded by huge temples of 
fine architectural beauty ; temples and palaces 
covering a mile square ; and excepting my ser- 
vants, I was the only tenant of a magnificent lost 
city. Trees were rooting on the friezes of noble 
porticos and splitting their marble members 
asunder. 

" I was once caged in a small cave near old Gol- 
conda, and my guard of honor was a huge tiger, 
who lay across the entrance to the den, and 
strove to tear down the barricade I had erected 
to keep him out. His fierce growls as he wildly 
scratched against the granite wall, curdled the 
blood in my veins and his breath came hot upon 
my face, the winding crevices in the barricade 
permitting this, while not allowing me to shoot 
through them. I sat rifle in hand, expecting 
every minute that my protection would give way, 
and then barely hoping that I might send a 



THE OLD man's STORY. 253 

bullet into the monster's brain. Finally the wall 
toppled — he crouched for the fatal spring, when 
a shell from my faithful gun pierced his heart, 
and I sank in a swoon from long excitement , and 
physical exhaustion." 

A sweet voice of intense emotion came across 
the table. 

"And — and — please tell me how long did you 
lie in the swoon ?" 

Ah, how I did long to press to my bosom that 
dear, sympathetic heart ! 

I replied, " I do not know, but when I came 
to, I felt I was dying from thirst. I crept 
through the opening and with the tiger's blood 
not yet cold, moistened my parching tongue. I 
lapped it in a sort of revenge." 

" That was grand ! Oh, why am I not a man ?" 
she exclaimed. 

I leaned towards her, my heart spoke in tones 
she did not mistake. " Thank God ! thank God ! 
you are not." 

She started, her eyes met mine, every drop of 
blood seemed to leave her cheek, she was so pale ; 
our eyes looked into our eyes. Her face crim- 
soned, and she rushed out of the room. 

Mrs. Allen apolegetically — " do not mind that 
child, Mr. Felden, she's an idiot," and then, her 
face became nearly malignant, " Yes, she's an 
idiot, a plague and a nuisance." 



254 A SUMMER^S OUTING. 

How I hated her ! How I gloated over tHe 
idea, that I would take the plague from her, 
resolved never to ask her consent. For several 
days the young lady's manner was constrained 
but not haughty. I was differential but reserved. 
Indeed I felt a sort of timidity when she was 
present. I avoided every appearance of throw- 
ing myself into her company. 

I spent some time in the business quarter of 
town and soon secured some capital orders for 
my employers. This gave me real pleasure. 
You, old Jamison, who are so true to your firm, 
understand this feeling. I made excursions to 
other towns where I was somewhat successful. 

The fourth Sunday was a' glorious sunny day, 
just the one for a long ramble in the country. 

At breakfast I asked Rita to join me in a con- 
stitutional. The aunt spoke up, " Of course 
she will, I would go myself, but ni}^ lame foot 
forbids it." 

I proposed going to the hotel to get a lunch. 

"No! No ! " the old lady said. " No ! I will 
put you up a nice basket. In a few days you 
will take me out for a long promenade a voiture." 
I consented by a nod. 

With basket in hand, we left the house 
early. My companion wore a charming but 
plain walking habit ; a boy's straw hat sat jaunt- 
ily on her head. I was sure I had never seen 



THE OLD man's story. 255 

anything half so beautiful, as was this dark, yet 
fair young girl. Rita was a glorious walker. 
Hers was not the gliding swimming motion 
which in America and especially in the South, 
has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of female 
grace ; but the light springiug movement, with 
which fair Eve tripped over Eden's bloom be- 
spangled glens, when she gathered flowers of 
every sweet odor and of every native tint to deck 
her bridal bed ; when she tripped over nature's 
parterres and scarcely brushed away the dews 
sparkling on their wealth of fragrant bloom. 

We walked and gaily chatted. She lost all 
the reserve, which since I became an inmate of 
her. auntie's home had more or less marked her 
demeanor. She was the young village maiden, 
who had in artless innocence, at Boston's old 
frog pond, laughingly talked with the respectful 
stranger. But when our eyes met, her soul 
spoke unconsciously through them, telling me 
that she read my heart and was full of sym- 
pathy. 

We reached a high tree-clad bluff, which over- 
looked a wide river bend. The sun was warm, 
but sent upon us no burning rays ; rather shim- 
mering his light through the leafy shade. 
Across the stream, a broad bottom lay, waving 
in grass and grain, and bright here and there 
with opening cotton bloom. We sat side by side 



256 A summer's outing. 

on a fallen tree, and drank in the beauty of a 
picture painted from colors worked upon nature's 
pallette. 

We descended toward the river bank to a pretty 
little spring which Rita had before oftentimes 
visited. We partook of the lunch Mrs. Allen 
had put up for us, or as Rita said, " for her gold 
paying lodger, who was a traveled savant." 

She made the welkin ring with her merry 
laugh, as she took the wrapping paper from a 

dustv bottle of claret. 

•J 

" Oh ! my generous aunty ! see, here is genu- 
ine Chateau Lafitte! I knew she had it, but I 
have seen a bottle of it but once on her table, 
and that was when President Polk dined with 
us, a good while ago. Poor aunty ! You have 
surely bewitched her, Mr. Felden." 

The lunch was delicious, and we did it ample 
justice. " See, Mr. Felden, here is real spring 
chicken broiled to a " T." Poor aunt; strangely 
inconsistent aunty. A lavish miser ! a generous 
lover of self ! A born epicure." 

We wandered among little gorges : she was 
happy, for she was a joyous young girl, set free 
in nature's haunts. I was happy because by my 
side was my own — my Heaven given mate, the 
rib taken from my long ago progenitor, and now 
given back to me. Grown somewhat tired, we 
sat upon the grass covered root of an upturned 



THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 257 

tree. I said something, I remember not what, 
my companion started ; I noticed and adverted to 
to it. 

'' Mr. Felden, do you know you frequently 
startle me. I seem to hear in your voice a tone 
I have heard before, or have listened to in my, 
dreams." I felt the hour had come. 

" Miss Rita. I owe to you a confession. I am 
not what I am." I spoke wdth all the pathos 
practice among wild and dangerous people had 
made me master of. 

^' Listen to me, Rita, pardon my familiarity: 
but you will forgive me when I have finished." 

I rapidily gave her the story of my life, and 
dwelt upon the meeting with her sister at the 
flower show, and the hold it took upon me. 
Again she started, and was about to speak, when 
with a motion, I stilled her tongue. I spoke 
of my long wanderings, and then of my seeing 
her at the Burnett and thinking her the lady of 
the flower show. 

I told her of my visit to Boston. The color 
left her face, and she faltered out — " I knew it — 
I see it now, you are Mr. Ford," and crimsoned 
from neck to the roots of her glossy hair. 

" Yes, Rita, I am John . I am Jack Ford; 

and now Jack Felden tells you that he loves you 
— he worships you and would make you his 
wife and would be happy, — would make you his 



258 A summer's outing. 

wife, Ills Queen — and would, too, make you 
happy." 

I paused and grasped her hand — she did not 
withdraw it. For a moment she was silent, and 
then raising her dark confiding eyes to mine, 
she said in low tones: 

" Thank God, Jack, I have not dreamed and 
pra^^ed in vain. I will be your wife — I will cling 
to you through life, and will rest by your side 
in death." 

I drew her unresisting form to my heart, I 
kissed her lips in one long kiss, and saw, within 
the gates ajar, the paradise awaiting me. 

We arose, and hand in hand, silent, but with 
heart speaking to heart, walked slowly home- 
ward. We scarcely spoke. Speech was un- 
necessary. There was a silent communion of 
souls, still, 3^et eloquent. We were one. We 
were as Adam, when first created, male and 
female ; our simple reunion was bliss. 

We are to start together next week for Bos- 
ton, to be married in the presence of Minnie. 
Mrs. Allen is glad to be freed from the expense 
of Rita's outfit. She regrets that " a great 
traveler, who ought to be wiser, can tie himself 
down to a chit of a girl." I go to Chicago to- 
morrow to close up my affairs, and to bring Jim 
and his wife here. This climate will suit them 
better than that of Chicago. We will halt in 



THH OLD man's story. 259 

Cincinnati long enough to see you, old fellow, 
and when married we will go abroad for a year. 

Congratulate me, dear Jamison, for I am the 
happiest of men. Yours, never again to perpet- 
uate a folly. Jack. 

I, too, was happy, for I loved Felden as I had 
loved no one since my wife and little ones went 
to Heaven. 

Imagine my astonishment, my terror, when 
some weeks later, I received a short letter mailed 
at St. Louis. 

" Dear Jamison, my true and honest friend: 

"Forget me forever! Do not try to look me 
up ; never inquire for me ; never again mention 
my name. Henceforth I am dead to the world. 

Your friend. Jack." 
' I did not try to understand these terrible lines. 
I honored m^^ friend and felt sure he had good 
reasons for his request. I complied with his 
demands, except one, I could not forget. 



CHAPTER V. 

Years passed by, but brought no tidings from 
Jack Felden. I made no inquiries for him; his 
last request came to me as from the grave and 
was sacred. Had we met on the street, I would 
have passed him unheeded, unless the first ad- 
vance had come from him. 

I said no tidings came from him; that is, no 
direct or positive tidings. 

On the first of May following his letter, a case 
of Chateau Lafitte, a jasmine turkish pipe and 
six sealed cans oi Ladikiyeh tobacco came to my 
room. Tacked to the box was an envelope con- 
taining this message: " On the first day of May 
and November of every year, drink to the health 
of a lost friend who loved you. May the cares 
of life lift from ^^our heart as lightly as the 
smoke curls from your chibouque." Regularly 
after that, on November ist and Alay ist, a case 
of finest claret and a half dozen cans of Turkish 
tobacco sent from a great wine house in New 
York, was placed in my room by an express 
messenger, and never after that did I fail to drink 
in silence to my friend. Whoever sent the wine 
and tobacco evidently kept note of my life, for 
my residence was changed three times, once to a 
distant city ; the messenger found me wherever 
I was domiciled. 

.260 - 



THE OLD man's STORY. 261 

Not long after Felden's disappearance, the 
troubles which had been brewing between the 
North and the South broke out into open war. 
Our house was among the first to close its busi- 
ness as it was wholh^ dependent on Southern 
trade. We paid up ever}' dollar we owed and 
both heads of the firm retired to the country. 
Service was offered me under another firm, but 
as I had become a part of the machinery of the 
old house, I felt such a change would prove un- 
congenial. 

I volunteered in answer to ]\Ir. Lincoln's first 
call for troops and was sent into camp in Ken- 
tucky. In a month I was sick and ordered dis- 
charged b}^ the surgeon. A complaint, hitherto 
unknown to me, forbade active and hard work, 
but the consolation was offered me that with 
light, healthful exercise, generous food and 
abstinence from au}^ nervous strain, I might live 
to old age. I was given a clerkship in the com- 
missar}^ department, and in '62 was transferred 
to Washington cit3^ When the war was over I 
was retained in ni}^ position. Close confinement 
affected my health. 

One of my pleasantest memories was of a 
summer spent in fishing and boating in the 
neighborhood of Alackinaw. Something im- 
pelled me to renew m}^ old friendship with the 
well-remembered scenes. After a brief stay on 



262 A summer's outing. 

the island 1 became a denizen of a lumber camp 
located a few miles from the rock which brought 
me to your acquaintance. Alone in a light row- 
boat which I had purchased at Buffalo on my 
way up the lakes, a large part of each day was 
spent on the water. 

One bright da}^ I anchored my boat near the 
" Rock " I mentioned to you, on the boat com- 
ing from the Soo, and wandered in the woods 
stretching behind it. The forest was of small 
trees, with here and there an old timer spared by 
the loggers. Every thing about me was wild, 
and excepting stumps and upper members of 
trees from which saw-logs had been removed, 
there was nothing to indicate fellowship with 
men. Emerging from a small ravine I came 
upon an opening in the wood on the edge of 
which was a cluster of three tents, one appar- 
ently for the occupancy of a luxurious owner ; a 
plainer one for servant or servants and a third 
for a kitchen with a stove pipe projecting through 
its apex. In front of the principal tent was a soi t 
of porch or shed covered with light boards to 
keep out the rain, and over-topped with boughs 
giving it a sylvan character. 

I walked toward the tent when a huge old 
mastiff, fat and un wieldly, sprang toward me 
with a bark and growl which brought me to a 
sudden halt. The beast rushed toward me 



THE OLD man's STORY. 263 

angril}^, but all at once paused and smelt about 
me with his bristles erect. These, however 
soon smoothed down and the dog whined as if I 
w^as not unknown to him. A gentleman and 
lady stepped from the large tent. Imagine my 
intense surprise when I recognized before me 
the stately form of Jack Felden. I repressed all 
evidences of recognition and with a bow and low 
apology was about to turn away, when Jack in 
his old cheery tone, cried out : 

" Don't go, Paul, chance has brought you to 
me ; why old Akbar recognized you and wishes 
you to stop ; come back ! " His words were 
kindly and his tone almost loving. I ran to him 
and for a moment our arms were about each others 
shoulders and our eyes were moistened by tears. 
The lady came forward, saying: 

" It is Mr. Jamison, Jack, is it not? But I 
need not ask, for no man, but you Air. Jamison, 
would be thus met by my husband." 

We were soon seated before that tent in that 
sweet intercourse which arises only between gen- 
uine friends. It was dif&cult to realize that 
years had elapsed since I had last seen Jack. He 
was the same open hearted, genial and dignified 
man. Shortly afterward, the dog got up lazil}^, 
and trotting toward the little ravine, met a gray 
bearded negro — the Jim Madison who so dis- 
turbed me on the Licking river. His pleasure 



264 A summer's outixg. 

at seeing me seated with Felden aud his wife, 
seemed unbounded. When I repeated to him 
what I had told his master of m}^ location in the 
logging camp, he said^ in a tone that showed the 
thing was a matter of course : 

'' Well! Mars Jack, I'll jes' take de boat an' go 
to de camp an' fotch Mr. Jamison's things over." 

Jack laughed, '' Yes, Jim, 3^our hospitality^ has 
onW run ahead of mine. Jamison must come 
and make his home with us in ' Big Rock Camp.' " 

Before night I was in possession of Jim's tent 
and he had fixed his cot in a corner of the 
kitchen. We spent the next few da3's fishing, 
walking and talking. The late afternoons and 
evenings were delightful. Jack sang glorious!}' 
to the guitar, and his wife could discourse 
charming music from that most inharmious of 
instruments, the banjo. She had a rich con- 
tralto A'oice and sang with what is higher than 
all art — exquisite tenderness and deep feeling. 

Jack was usualh^ as ga}' as I had ever known 
him, but occasionalh' his face had a tinge of in- 
tense sadness, which he evidently struggled to 
suppress. This expression was never shown in 
his wife's sight. With her he was a rolicking, 
jo3'ous man, and ever}^ act and word showed him 
a loving, an idolatrous husband. But when her 
back was turned he occasionalh' regarded her 
with a look of such pain that m}- heart went out 
toward him and ached for him. 



THE OLD man's story. 265 

About a week after my arrival Jack and I were 
fishing at some distance from the camp, our low 
conversation had flagged, when he suddenly said : 
" Mr. Jamison, you must have thought me a 
brute all of these years." 

I quickly responded, ^' No, Jack ! I never 
doubted you had good reasons for your silence, 
and nothing w^ould have tempted me here had I 
dreamed I would meet you." 

" I am so glad you came ! I have wanted to 
see you more than you can think." His voice 
was exquisitely modulated while saying this. 

."I wish now to tell you every thing. Rita 
wishes me to do so. Your great discretion will 
teach you how far 3^ou must hereafter be reticent 
in her presence. The one great object of my 
life is to save her pain — to make her happy." 

" When I wrote you my long letter I was 
about to be married and was to call to see you 
on our way to Boston; am I not right?" I 
nodded. 

" Well, in a week Rita received a letter from 
her sister saying she was not well, and suggest- 
ing that it would be better we should be married 
in Tennessee. This letter altered our plans. A 
few days later a dispatch came from Wilton, 
telling us, that poor Minnie had died suddenly, 
she and her baby at the same time. Airs. Allen 
was a great stickler for what she called the pro- 



266 A summer's outing. 

prieties of life, and though she had not in her 
heart a spark of affection for her nieces, she in- 
sisted our marriage should be postponed for at 
least three months. 

Rita had been in her care since childhood ; it 
is true the care was of no gentle kind, but she 
was grateful and did not wish to displease her 
Aunt. I went to Chicago to get my affairs into 
shape. Before the time I was to have returned, 
my darling wrote me that her shrewd worldly- 
wise Aunt had become suddenly alarmed by the 
shape political matters were rapidly taking ; had 
determined to convert all she owned into money 
and to go to her relatives in England for the 
remainder of her da^^s. The dear girl begged 
me to come to her as soon as possible. Her wish 
was my law. I started the next day ; for I had 
acquired the habit of being always ready for a 
change of base. 

Reaching I found the shrewish old wo- 
man up to her e3^es in affairs. I lent her all the 
assistance possible, and in one month she was 
ready for her departure. . With her and another 
for witnesses, Rita and I were made one. She 
dowered her niece with five thousand dollars, 
kissing her most decorously on the forehead. In 
a half hour after the ceremony she started north, 
and we west. Her last words were, ''Adieu ! 
Don't write to me. If I ever care to hear from 



THE OLD man's STORY. 267 

you I will write." She thus passed out of our 
lives and we know not whether she be alive or 
dead. 

Aly bride and I went to ]\Ieniphis and thence 
to St. Louis. We were absolute!}^ happy. The 
world was bright and ros}^ to us both. ^Ly wife 
was, as full}^ as I, imbued with the belief that 
we were mated, dovetailed together ; were as 
thoroughh' one as Adam or Shiva were one, be- 
fore Eve or Parvati were taken from them. 

Possessed as w^e were of perfect health, ph3^si- 
cally we might have been models to an artist for 
robust, untainted manhood and womanhood. 
Not a cloud flecked our sk}^ — not a shadow, we 
thought, could possibly lurk beneath the hori- 
zon. At St. Louis, the da^^ after our arrival, we 
had been out for a walk and on returning I went 
to the hotel reading room, while Rita gail}^ 
tripped up stairs toward our room, kissing her 
hand to me from the upper landing. I picked 
up a paper, chance-dropped by some traveller, 
published in the town near my home ; the same 
which Jim had brought me with the announce- 
ment of Belle's marriage. Almost the first 
thing I saw was an editorial statement that " the 
marriage between the beautiful Mrs. Belle - — — 

and the Marquis of in Rome had been 

positively and permanenth' abandoned." My 
eyes were riveted to the horrible column. It 



268 A summer's outing. 

continued : " The proud uncrowned Queen of 

discovered before it was too late, the titled 

groom desired the gems and gold in the bride's 
strong box, far more than the jewels and pure 
metal so effulgently shining in her form and 
rich in her character, etc., etc." I was stunned — 
my blood stood still in my heart. I leaned over 
upon a table and was blind from intense agony. 
I thought of my own misery, but Great God ! 
what would become of my poor wife ! My limbs 
seemed powerless ; I did not move until a light 
hand rested upon my head. 

My wife had come down to find me. " Oh, 
darling, what is it, what is it?" I took her 
hand and slowly staggered to our room. I knelt 
at her feet. I prayed her to forgive me. I hid 
my face in her lap and sobbed as a broken 
hearted child. She smoothed my hair and for 
some minutes with sweetest of all sympathy let 
my grief flow. Then she lifted my head. 
" Tell me what it is, my husband." 
I looked into her dear pale face and cried, " I 
cannot — I cannot break your heart, my poor 
wife." 

'' Break my heart, darling ! It can never 
break while it has yours to dwell in." 
" But," I gasped, "we must part." 
" Part ! part ! Oh, God! Jack ! what is it 
you say? part! no, no! Never, never!" She 



THE OLD man's STORY. 269 

was as colorless as the lace about her neck. I 
then told her all. 

When I had finished, she laid her arm around 
my neck, drew my cheek to hers, and said in a 
firm, brave voice, " No, Jack, my darling, we 
will not part. I am your wife, wedded in Hea- 
ven. God was witness to our betrothal under 
the open sky. God was sponsor to our marriage. 
We are man and wife and no man or woman can 
ever separate us. I am ^^our Eve darling and 
with you would live in Eden, but if driven out, 
I will be by your side and wherever we go, there 
will be m}^ paradise. You have not offended the 
law. You thought yourself free and no one can 
blame j^ou." 

I pressed her to my heart and cried, " ]\Iy 
Rita, my noble Rita ! " 

" No, no ! Jack, I am 3^our Rita, but not 3^our 
noble Rita. I am simply a woman ; I am your 
wife and do no more or no less than any loving 
woman should do." 

We resolved to go to Chicago, to live in seclu- 
sion while I should do all I could to increase my 
fortune, and then Ave would go off" to some far off 
land, where there could be no possibility of hav- 
ing scandal's finger pointed at us. I then wrote 
you to forget me. 

I again became Jack Felden, and my wife 
learned to like my olive hue and my dark hair 



270 A summer's outing. 

better than my natural complexion. Chicago 
became our home. I courted fortune on change. 
For a while I was but indifferently successful. 
One year on almost the last day of August, Jim 
hurriedly entered my office saying: 

" Mars Jack, your time is come. My ole 
ankles tells me thar will be a killing frost dis 
night; the corn will be cotched. I knows what 
I tells you. I'run all way down town to tell 3^ou. 
Go out now, dis very minit, an' buy all de 
corn you can carry ; put 3^our las' dollar up and 
make a fortune. You'll win. Mars Jack ; if you 
fails, you kin sell me for a ole grinnin possum." 

The honest face of my old friend was ashy 
from excitement. With one word — "Jim I'll do 
it," I went on the board and before night nearly 
every dollar I owned on earth was up in margins 
on corn. That night there was a frost, corn 
Avent up several cents ; this gave me additional 
margins, and I risked all. One month later I 
had cleared a handsome fortune. 

The next year Rita and I went abroad to re- 
main for two years. A boy was born to us in 
Egypt. We wanted Jim and Dinah to see him. 
For though they were our servants, we loved 
them as our best friends. I knew how Dinah 
would yearn to hold little Jack on her bosom; to 
live over in her deep loving fancy the days when 
her baby John drew his life from her breast. 



THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 27 1 

She had prayed that Miss Rita would let her 
nuss Mars John's Baby. She never saw him. In 
London he was exhaled as a dew drop. It was 
a sad blow ; but my wife did not grieve as I 
feared she would. 

She said " it is best Jack. He would have been 
nameless in the eyes of the law. We will live 
for each other." It would have been better had 
she shed more tears ; for there are times when 
her very fortitude alarms me. 

We returned to Chicago. Rita was quietly 
happy in her little secluded home. I am always 
happy, when her face is unclouded. 

My disguise as Jack Felden precludes any 
ambition either social or otherwise. Our little 
family lives for each other, and is perfectly 
satisfied to know only a few necessary acquaint- 
ances. We go to theatres and concerts and keep 
ourselves abreast of progress and of life. We 
are school teachers, Jim being our pupil. His 
life is inwoven with ours. We are both fond of 
books. People we often meet at places of amuse- 
ment and on our drives look at us inquiringly, 
and occasionally some have tried to break into 
our seclusion. We have met the kindly ad- 
vances courteously, but continue to live within 
ourselves. Our city being made up of people 
new to each other, makes this easy. 



272 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

Once in New York at the opera I saw Belle ; 
she was the admired occnpant of a box. Her 
opera glass was bent upon us several times. I 
think she recognized her acquaintance of the 
New Orleans ball-room. She was still queenly, 
cold, and I could see selfishness had laid its mark 
upon more than one of her perfectly modeled 
features. She was still the proud rich widow. 

Rita looked at her through her glass, and said 
to me "Jack dear, look at that magnificent 
blonde ; she is perfect in form, and her features 
are faultless, but she could never be a follower 
of the Buddh ; she could tread the life out of 
living beings, and care not if she only did not 
soil her skirts." With that she turned so as not 
to see her again. I kept my counsels. Belle 
was not again referred to. 

Last spring Rita lost a little girl at its birth; 
she did not recuperate. The Doctor advised a 
tent life for the summer. Dinah was not well 
enough to accompany us. If Rita be not fully 
recovered by the middle of autumn, we will go 
to the upper Nile. I have an idea its climate 
must prove beneficial to her. 

As I said, we keep to ourselves ; at first, feeling 
it necessary because ^ve were over a social vol- 
cano, but lately from choice. I cannot help 
thinking that Belle will some day grow weary 
of her widowed life and will make me free ; she 



THE OLD man's STORY. 273 

can get a decree of divorce, I cannot. I would 
not commit a fraud to win one, and she would 
not permit me to obtain it otherwise. Now 
Jamison, you know why I have so long neglected 
you." 

'' Yes, Jack, I not only know, but full}' ap- 
preciate your feelings, and though I tr}^ to be a 
religious man, I cannot blame you for your 
course." With that he pressed my hand in 
warm and grateful affection." 

Felden seemed to have told all he wished to 
tell at that time. That there Avas something 
still untold, I suspected. 



CHAPTER VI. 

That niglit, never to be forgotten by me, we 
were kept entirely within doors, by a deluging 
rain. The winds shrieked through the groan- 
ing trees. The thunder rolled in constant and 
awe inspiring reverberations. The lightning 
kept the tent in a continuous blaze. Thoroughly 
protected, we were silenced by the awful voice of 
the tempest. A storm is never so grand as to 
the occupants of a tent in a wild forest, one 
seems then so close to Him who rides the winds 
and speaks in the roar of the thunder. 

Just as nature seemed wearied of the intense 
exertion, the old mastiff sprang up with a growl 
and rushed toward the tightly closed tent door. 

The curtain was drawn aside, when he sprang 
out into the night, and was soon in pursuit of 
some wild animal, evidentl}^ of considerable size, 
for we heard its flying tread in the darkness. 
When the storm abated, Jim reported that a 
fine mess of bass we had caught just before dark 
had been stolen. Mrs. Felden expressed regret, 
for several of the fish had been taken by her. 
Jack laughingly offered to go down to the Rock 
at day break, and bring back a mess in time for 
breakfast at §even. 

When I awoke, the next morning the sun 
was quite high in the heavens. Mrs. Felden 

-274 



THE OLD MAX'S STORY. 275 

and Jim were already out, and evinced some im- 
patience, because Jack had not returned with the 
promised breakfast. When seven o'clock came, 
the wife sent the old man to call her husband 
home, fish or no fish. 

"Tell him," said she, "that the storm has 
made us ravenous.!' 

When Jim also failed to return in due time, 
Mrs. Felden became alarmed and asked me to 
follow him. I set out, and although the ground 
was sopping wet, she joined me, in spite of my 
gentle remonstrances. We soon met Jim hurry- 
ing towards us. His face was of an ashen hue. 

"Where is Jack, Jim — Oh where is my hus- 
band?" shrieked the mistress, as she. rushed past 
the negro toward the water. 

The man caught her arm, "Stop Miss Rita, 
stop Miss Rita, fer de Lord sake stop. I'll tell 
you. Miss Rita, please stop." 

She tried to tear herself from his grasp. "Oh 
my God, he's dead — my husband is dead. Tell 
me— Jim, where is my husband?" 

The negro forced her down on a boulder, and 
catching her hand covered it with tears and 
kisses. "Miss Rita, my dear Misses, be good 
an' I'll tell you all." She attempted in vain to 
arise, for a powerful arm held her firmly, but 
gently back. 



276 A summer's outing. 

I sat by lier side, and lay my hand soothingly 
on her shoulder, saying — "Tell her, Jim, she is 
a brave woman and can bear the Lord's will. 
Tell her all." 

The negro's face showed oniy too plainly that 
her worst fears were true. "Aliss Rita — I'll tell 
3^ou all. Be a good chile Miss Rita; jess be 
Mars Jack's wife, Miss Rita, an' I'll keep nothin' 
back." 

"I will Jim — tell me the worst;" she uttered 
between choking sobs. 

In a voice of intense grief and solemnity, Jim 
then said, "Be a good chile, Aliss Rita; be de wife 
of de grandes' man what ever lived; Jim Madi- 
son never tole his marster an' mistis a lie. God 
is good, Miss Rita; his wa^^s is unscrubable; he 
knows whats bes', for his chilluns. He wanted 
Mars Jack hisself ; he done took him to his side. 
Mars Jack's drownded." 

A wild shriek rang through the woods — a 
shriek of agony which caused the blood to run 
cold in my veins. The bereaved woman stared 
into vacancy., as though seeking her husband's 
form. She arose from her seat almost rigid, and 
without a w^ord, fell in a dead swoon at our feet. 
So still did she lie and so long, that I feared she 
had passed away. 

After a quarter of an hour, as it seemed to us, 
Mrs. Felden recovered a semi-consciousness — 



THE OLD MANS STORY. 277 

staring first at one of us and then at the other 
with piteously questioning eyes. When the 
horrible reality again dawned upon her awaken- 
ing mind, the forest was filled with heart rend- 
ing cries, silence only coming when she once 
more fainted away. I chafed her hands while Jim 
ran to the tents for camphor and brand}-. We 
bathed her face and neck; fanned her; poured 
brandy between her parted lips — did all that 
suggested itself to our terrified minds. The 
swoon lasted so long that we had almost aban- 
doned hope, when she breathed and opened her 
eyes — they were vacant. 

She wept no more, but in low sweet tones 
murmured "Jack darling, don't be lonesome; I 
win come to you! Yes, Jack, I'll come." 

These were repeated again and again, as we 
bore her to the tents and laid her on her bed. 
She immediately- fell into a sleep lasting for 
hours, and onh^ interrupted b}- sobs and moans. 
I Avatched by her bedside while Jim went off 
saying he had work on hand which must be 
done at once. When the poor lady awoke and 
looked into my face, I thanked the Giver of all, 
that she was herself again in mind, though her 
strength seemed quite broken. 

Upon Jim's return she said in tones so calm, 
so gentle and so full of deep suffering, that they 



278 A summer's outing. 

pained me almost as much, as had her more ac- 
tive grief : 

"Sit down Jim and tell me all about it. You 
said you would tell me all. You see I am calm. 
You see I can bear anything — ever3'thii]g 
bravely." 

He replied in his simple caressing manner, 
"not ter da}^, my chile, you jes eat an' sleep an' 
git strong; ter morrer I'll tell you ever3'thing. 
You'se weak now, Miss Rita, — wait till ter 
morrer." 

"I will Jim." She hardly spoke again during 
the day or following night. 

When he brought her supper, she tried like 
an obedient child to eat all he urged upon her, 
sa34ng in answer to his w^ords of encouragement, 
"Yes, Jim; I must eat and be strong. I need all 
my strength." 

When at dark, she seemed to sink into sleep 
the negro and I sat outside the tent so that we 
could watch within, but far enough off we 
thought, to prevent our conversation reaching 
her ears. 

He then told me that on going to the rock in 
the morning he saw that a large part of it weigh- 
ing a ton or more, had fallen since the da}- before 
into the deep water at the precipice's base ; there 
had been a thin crevice or fissure running through 
the rock, in which a few vines and small bushes 



THE OLD man's story. 279 

had taken root. Into this crack the heavy rain 
of the night had swept, eating away the last 
puny tie which held the two parts together. 
Jack's weight in the morning was too much 
for it. 

Jim found his rod floating at the base, the 
hook having caught on a small bush growing 
nigh. About half w^ay down a part of his coat 
sleeve was hanging to a rough corner of the 
jagged rock. As the falling man went down on 
the broken nmss, he had evidently clutched at 
the projection; had wrapped his arm about it, 
but had in some w^ay been caught and forced 
dowmward tearing the sleeve from the arm. 

Jim who was a keen observer, understood at 
once that his master was down below^ among the 
ruins of the fallen mass. He threw off his 
clothes and dived to the bottom. In the second 
dive he discovered what he sought. He found 
his master's body lying on its back, held and 
pinioned by a massive stone weighing tons. Af- 
ter making this discovery, he had returned to 
meet us. But while his mistress slept in the af- 
ternoon, leaving me to watch by her side, he had 
again visited the Rock. He wore heav}^ flannels 
to protect himself as much as possible from the 
chilly water. 

He found the body above the knees was free. 
He tried to draw it out, only to learn to his 



28o A summer's outing. 

sorrow, that it could not be removed except by 
rending it from the lower limbs. The bottom 
was of gravel so compacted as to be nearly as 
hard as stone. The dead man had been caught 
below the knees in a recess or depression in the 
falling rock. Jim expressed great joy that this 
depression while holding his master's limbs as 
in a vise, had protected them from being 
crushed. 

"We'll cut up de wings of de kitchen tent an' 
sew 'em tergedder three or fo' thick wid twine, 
and spread 'em over Mar's Jack an' den I'll put 
rocks on de canvas, an' down thar under de 
clean water it '11 stay till de blessed Jesus calls 
his chilluns home." 

I expressed great gratification that he had 
thought of this, and suggested that he could 
send for some loggers to give us aid. 

He quickly stopped me. " No ! No ! Mr. Jam- 
ison ! Mars Jack's been wearin' masks all dese 
long years. He's been hidin' from men. No 
man must' know his las' restin' place. No man 
but you an' me." 

I honored this tender solicitude for his master's 
secret and at once acquiesced, telling him that, 
when Mrs. Felden's condition would admit of 
our both leaving her, I would aid him in his 
pious endeavors. 



THE OLD man's story. 28 1 

" Dat's right Mr. Jamison, me an' 3^ou must 
nuss dat darlin' chile — you an' me an' her an' 
Dinah knows his secrut. You an' me an' her an' 
Dinah mus' keep his secrut to our graves. If 
eny body helps us here, de officers and de news- 
papers '11 be sticking dar oar in. I'd ruther see 
you an' Miss Rita down dar along side 'er Mars 
Jack, dan anybody should meddle in his matters." 

He said this in subdued tones, but there was 
on his face a gleam of almost savage determina- 
tion. 

The next day Mrs. Felden was perfectly calm ; 
her mind apparently clear, but there was a far 
away expression in her eyes that gave me un- 
easiness. 

When Jim had removed the little breakfast 
table from her bedside, she said, " I am strong 
to-day, Jim ; see how calm I am. I can hear and 
bear everything, as my husband's wife should 
do." 

He told her all he had discovered, to the min- 
utest detail. He controlled his voice and man- 
ner so as not to show the deep emotion with 
which his loving heart was almost breaking. 
His voice was low, sweet, and sympathetic. 
Having finished his account, he said, " Now 
chile, be a brave good oman. 'Member what a 
great big man Mars Jack was, an' how he loved 
his wife mor'n hisself. He's up thar, Miss Rita ; 



282 A summer's outing. 

his eyes is clar, for Jesus is by his side and 
makes him see everything ; he sees you dis 
minit, an' knows you'll soon be beside 'im. 
Don't let him see you miserble." 

Mrs. Felden's calmness astonished me. She 
listened in silence ; tears rolled down her cheeks ; 
her breast heaved with low deep sighs, but there 
was a strange light in her eyes, which looked 
afar off, and seemed to see her husband as the 
man described him. When the faithful negro 
had finished, he had her hand in his. For long 
minutes she uttered not a word. Her spirit was 
in that far off land beyond the skies or more 
probably at the foot of the rock. We watched 
her in silence. 

At last she said, "Jim is right, Mr. Jamison. 
If my husband could speak to us now, he would 
bid us keep his secret." Her keenly atuned 
ears had evidently overheard Jim when he so 
urgently insisted that no one should help us. 

" No one must know what has happened — no 
one but ourselves ; we must do all. I will help 
for I am strong now. A few loggers have 
passed our camp, if they come again and make 
any inquiries, they must be made to believe my 
husband has gone away, and that he is coming 
back. No human being must ever know our 
grave '' she quickly added," " where he sleeps." 



THE OLD man's story. 283 

She paused, her face brightened with unnatu- 
ral light, and with a voice of exquisite sweetness, 
she whispered, ''sleep well Jack ! sleep well my 
husband, your wife will soon be with you." 

Jim at once proceeded to his task. He asked 
me to row to the nearest store, for some sea- 
grass cord, and all the chains I could buy, with- 
out arousing suspicion. 

I found no difficulty in completing my share 
of the preparations. Jim, in the meanwhile, 
made two sheets eight to nine feet square, 
and of four thicknesses of strong canvas, 
cutting up the wings of the tents for the pur- 
pose. We carried in the large boat, several 
hundred weight of boulders, as heavy as we 
could handle, to the shore near where poor 
Felden lay. These were to anchor down, for all 
time his last winding sheet. Two log chains 
were fastened securely around the edges of the 
canvas sheets ; a mass of strong boughs were 
made ready for anchoring over and around the 
watery grave, so that accretions of sand and 
gravel collected and held by them, would guard 
Jack's body securely and well. 



CHAPTER VII. 

We determined that as soon as these last ser- 
vices to the dead should be concluded, we would 
at once strike the camp and return to Chicago. 
When the labors required the strength of both 
Jim and myself, Mrs. Felden accompanied us. 
I was unwilling to leave her alone. Her calm- 
ness rather alarmed than assured me. It was 
the calmness, not of resignation, but of despair. 
When all was as I thought, in readiness, Jim 
asked me to get several bags of shot; I remem- 
bered afterwards, he did not state for wliat pur- 
pose they were needed. 

On my return before night, I noticed him and 
his mistress talking apart from me more than 
usual. She had, too, strangely altered. Instead 
of the look of agonized calmness worn by her 
face for the past few days, her appearance was 
almost cheerful. I could not help wondering, 
if after all this woman, apparently so passionate 
and intense, was of the shallow ones of her sex. 
She seemed to enjoy her dinner which was late, 
and ate more heartily than I had known her 
ever to eat before. 

She retired early. Jim and I sat up rather 
late ; he s'eemed loth for me to go to bed. When 
he retired, I lay awake for hours pondering over 
- 284- 



THE OLD man's story. 285 

the change in Mrs. Felden. Wearied at last, 
a profound slumber overcame me. 

I awoke in the morning to see the sun already 
several hours high. Jim was engaged in setting 
breakfast. I took a short walk. He soon blew 
the whistle — it was the call to meals. Mrs. 
Felden did not come out of her tent. There 
was only one plate on the table. To my enquir- 
ies, if she were not coming, he simply answered 
that I w^ould eat alone. I had slept so well 
during the night that my appetite was good, and 
I did full justice to the meal. In answer to my 
question whether Mrs. Felden would not like 
something, the negro seated himself before me, 
the first time I had ever known him to do so of 
his own volition, and said, " Mr. Jamison, Miss 
Rita '11 eat no more. She lies by Mars Jack in 
the deep water. Her soul is wid his at de foot 
of de Throne of Grace ; de blessed Jesus I be- 
lieve has brushed away her las' sin, if it wur a 
sin — de las' and almos' only one she ever done." 

The truth flashed across my mind at once. I 
sprang to my feet, and in angry horrified tones 
demanded — "Jim, has Mrs. Felden drowned her- 
self, and you have done nothing to prevent her 
mad act ?" 

" Yes, Air. Jamison, Miss Rita my mistress, 
who I loved nex' to my maister, is gone ter God, 
an' I seen her go, an' ain't lifted a finger or said 



2S6 A summer's outing. 

a word fer ter stop 'er an' more'ii that I helpt 
her. 

"Jim Madison, you are a murderer ! " I cried 
in anger. The negro arose. His eyes dilated 
and his form seemed to expand. His demeanor 
lost every vestige of the servant. He stood be- 
fore me a man, black, but of over-powering dig- 
nity. His face was stern, but not angry. From 
his six feet, he seemed to look down upon me ; 
he spoke to 'me ungrammatically, but in words 
almost free from negroism, save in the intonation 
of his voice. He was my equal, and seemed to 
feel himself my superior. The servant had de- 
parted, and in his place was a man, — a man 
whose every look and gesture bespoke virile 
power and self-confidencev 

" Mr. Jamison, your words an' indignation 
ain't uncalled for. In your eyes I am a aider in 
murder. In my eyes what I done wus right. 
You try to be a christian gentleman, Mr. Jami- 
son, an' I ain't ever seen a single act to make 
me doubt your goodness. I've professed Christ, 
and I want to walk in the paths He laid for me, 
an' as far as a sinful man can, to be a follower 
of Jesus. If the Saviour '11 forgive my old sins^ 
I ain't got no fear he will hole me to account for 
what I done, an' seen done to-day. 

"Mr. Felden told me the day before he died, 
that you k no wed everything about him but one 



THE OLD man's story. 287 

fact. If the Lord could 'er spared him he'd 'er 
told you all. 

" The las' day he lived he couldn't help feelin' 
that some great misfortune was comin'. He told 
me that if anythin' happened to him to get you 
to be a frien' to his wife ; if anything happened 
to 'em both, that you an' me was to be friens in 
all things. He didn't tell you he feared his wife's 
mind hung on a hinge, an' it might be easy 
broken ; that fear made him so keerful of her. 
He's been afeared ever since little Jack died in 
lyunnun, les' some sudden shock might drive her 
out her head. He said if he los' her he had 
some duties to perform for the colored race which 
gave him his two trues' friens, an' if him an' 
Miss Rita both died I was to do it. If it wasn't 
that I knowed I ought to carry out his plans, 
I'd wish I was by his side at the bottom of the 
lake. 

''When Miss Rita found whar her husban' 
laid, she wanted to go to his side. You 'member 
how calm she got. It was 'cause she made up 
her min' and was at peace. She tole me what 
she wanted. I knowed she'd carry it out. To 
her mine it wus right. Her mind you'll say 
wusn't balanced. But who can prove it ? I'd 
er killed any man who tried to steal her liberty, 
and to lock her up." 



288 A summer's outing. 

His eyes gleamed as if the blood of liis savage 
African ancestors was surging in his heart. "She 
asked me to help 'er ; what could I do ? If I 
refused, she'd go alone. If we used force here to 
prevent her, she'd come back, an' then she 
couldn't reach him to clasp him in her arms in 
death, as she promised she'd do when he told 
her their marriage wasn't legal. I says to myself, 
I can't prevent her, ain't it best for me to help 
her ? It was self-destruction, but my conscience 
didn't make a single objection. When you went 
fur the shot, I helped her make a canvas gown, 
which covered all her body 'cept her arms. The 
shot you brought I run in pockets all about the 
dress, I rowed her to the rock in the canoe. I 
held the boat to the right place. 

"Just before she dropt out, she cried, ^ I'm 
comin' my husban', I'm comin' ! ' After she 
sunk, I jumped in an' follered her. She laid by 
her husban's side, with her breas' on his, an' 
her cheek close 'gainst his face. One arm was 
on his shoulder. I bent it roun' his neck. I 
told her I would. I expect she held her breath 
an' kep' her will till she was ready, an' then she 
died. She was Mars Jack's brave wife. I helpt 
her before she went down, and I helpt her 
down thar. I had to dive down five times afore 
I got it all right. The water was cold, but I 
didn't feel it." 



THE OLD man's STORY. 289 

He paused a few minutes and then continued : 
" Mr. Jamison, the man who could 'er resisted 
Miss Rita's pleadin' when she begged me to help 
her, would 'er been hard hearteder than me. I 
I done it, an' I thank God I done it good. 

"Mars John when he was a school bo}^ tole me 
an Dineh about a good man before Christ come 
to save us sinners. That man took some sort 
'er tea" — "Was it hemlock?" I interjected. 
" Yes, that wus it ; he took hemlock tea, kaze the 
city ordered it. Mars John said that nobod^^ 
ever 'cused that good man of suicide. He told 
us of a great many good men a long while ago 
who killed thar selves an' nobody called it sui- 
cide. He tole us of one great man running on 
a sword held out by his servant an' nobody ain't 
'cused that servant of murder. Miss Rita done 
what the good man done a long while ago. She 
didn't drown herself; she went to her husband 
kaze she heard him callin' her. I didn't commit 
murder. I held the sword as 'er faithful servant 
oughter do." 

"Now Mr. Jamison, is it better she'd be alive, 
the widow of a unmarried-bed; married in 
Heaven, but her marriage not b}^ the law ; the 
widow of no lawful husban'; to be pinted at b}^ 
the finger of scorn? Would it be better fur her 
to be here, with madness peraps in her mine — 
ma3^be in a lunatic sylum, or by her husban's 
side, down thar in the bottom of the lake?" 



290 A SUMMER'S OUTING. 

''Men will be judged, Jim, I believe according 
to their lights," I answered. 

With a sigh he returned, "I'm willin' to be 
judged ! Now, sir, we must finish our task." 

We labored four days. Jim dived down and 
anchored long poles to guide our work. By 
means of these and by diving he spread the can- 
vas sheets over the bodies. He anchored them 
safely with the chains and boulders. We let the 
heavy stones down by cords gently to prevent 
them from falling upon the bodies. The Big 
Rock arises in a small land locked cove, thor- 
oughly protected from outer-waves, and almost 
hidden from view lake-ward. But for this we 
could not have performed our task. We strewed 
the boughs over the canvas, securing them in 
turn so as to catch the sands and gravels over the 
last resting place of our loved ones. Chilled 
though he was to the very bones, the determined 
negro would not desist from his labours, until 
thoroughl}^ satisfied. 

When all was finished, with uncovered head 
the negro threw a handful of dirt into the water, 
sa^ang, his voice broken with sobs: "Dust to 
dust ! Dust to dust!" 

We sang a hymn while tears streamed down 
our faces, and left the dear dead to Him who cre- 
ated them, and to Him who died that man might 
be redeemed. 



THE OLD MAX S STORY. 29 1 

It was dusk on Saturday, the fourth da3% when 
our work was ended. When we reached the 
camp old Akbar who had been sick since the 
night of the rain, la}^ dead before the tent. We 
buried him that night near the rock. 

Never was Sabbath rest more needed, than by 
us the next day. For da^^s we had labored under 
intense excitement. The strain removed, we 
were limp and nerveless. Jim advised hot drinks, 
very warm clothing and wraps and absolute 
rest. 

He covered himself head and all, sleeping 
heavily for nearl}^ twent^^-four hours. Alonday 
morning found him rested but " stiff in der 
jints." 

When we were about to abandon the camp, I 
intimated that it was necessary for me to go to 
Chicago, to see to winding up ni}^ friend's estate. 
The negro said with great dignity, ''No! Mr. 
Jamison it is not necessar}', but I want 3'ou to 
go. Mr. Felden lef ' a paper that makes ever}^- 
thing mine. Thar wur three copies of it. One 
is in the safe in Chicago. Miss Rita had one in 
a belt on her waist and the other is in a rubber 
bag here." 

He pointed to his waist. 

"Ef Miss Rita had er lived every thing would 
er been hers, excep a good livin for Dineli and 
me. But now I must take every thing to make 



292 A SUMMERS OUTING. 

good poor colored people happy. The paper tells 
me how to do it. We doa't have to go to the 
court. Mr. Felden didn't want nobody to know 
that his wife did not have his lawful name, and 
fixed it so I can take every thing." 

For a few moments he w^as silent and then con- 
tinued, "Mr. Felden the day before he died told 
me a honester man never lived than Mr. Paul 
Jamison, and ef any thing happened to him he 
wanted 3^ou to be a friend to his wife. Now Mr. 
Jamison I am rich, but I am a steward an' must 
use every dollar jis like my marster said I must. 
Ef you will help me, I will give 3^ou a good sa- 
lary and you kin carry out a noble purpose. 

I reflected a few moments and said, "Jim, I 
accept your proposition, and will devote all of 
my energies to the cause Mr. Felden had at 
heart. It is a noble one; one which at this junc- 
ture is as worthy as au}^ other on earth. I will, 
however, take of the salary 3^ou offer only what 
I need for a comfortable life." 

He seemed greatly pleased, saying: "I need 
you Mr. Jamison. In Cincinnati an' in Chicago 
my master began to educate me. I studied 
hard, and it was hard work, but I've liked best 
when I was a servant, to be a humble negro. 
But now I must be a man, with grave sponser- 
bilities, and must forgit what I was, in what I 
am. When I ac' the part of a negro servant, I 



THE OLD man's STORY. 293 

talk like a servant. It comes natral to me an' I 
likes it. Bnt now I am a servant no more, an' I 
spose I can change my speech onbeknownst jess 
like ]\Iars Jack. When he wus rosy and light 

haired he was John , when he wus dark 

an' black headed, he was Jack Felden. 

My granfather was brung from Africy a boy. 
He allers claimed he wus a great chief — a king. 
My young master John used to call me ''King 
Jim." He said the Africin heathen cropped out 
'er me. I've studied, but Ihn ignorant. I know 
nothing of the world but what he learned me. I 
learned to read, so I could read his letters. I 
learned how to talk to fit me to do business for 
Mr. Felden. My learnin' ain't much, an' that's 
what I want you for, to help me do my work." 

We reached Chicago in due time. Dinah was 
almost inconsolable when her husband told of 
the double tragedy. She began to droop and pine 
Siway. We rapidly arranged our affairs, finding 
no difficulty in doing so, for nearly ever^^thing was 
in good stocks and bonds. The bank settled with 
Madison as per written orders from Mr. Felden, 
found in his safe; making no inquiries except 
kindl}^ ones as to his health. These ]\Iadison 
evaded adroitly. 

When all was finished, we took Dinah to a 
warmer climate. Madison needed the change al- 
most as much as she. His natural predisposition 



294 A SUMMER S OUTING. 

to rlieumatism had been greatly aggravated by 
his exposure to the chilly water at the foot of 
the Rock. Indeed he suffered for many years 
greatly from that cause. Change of climate did 
him good, but poor Dinah's complaint, no 
human agency or climatic influence could reach. 
One evening about four months after the sad 
event at the camp, she went out as a burning 
candle — a flicker, and sCll was over. Her hus- 
band said "She didn't die, she jess went to 
Jesus an' to her foster-chile." 

We earnestly set to work to carry out Mr. 
Felden's wishes, greatly, I think to the benefits 
of a down trodden race. We kept only enough 
to support ourselves economically through the 
remainder of life. The old negro never per- 
mitted anyone to know whence benefits sprang, 
or who gave out charities. He said, "Mr. John 

— died long ago in India ; Mr. Jack Felden 

an' his wife sleep in their unknown grave ; no 
one but us knows who he wus, nor what he did, 
in fact, you don't know his real name ; no body 
except me knows that ; and no body but us mus 
know what he is doing now he's dead. If lie 
looks down on us an' sees what w^e are doin' 
with what helef',his spirit rejoices that we don't 
ask no thanks for him, but are doin' our best to 
make some sufferin' black folks happy. 



THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 295 

A short while before I met you, Madison 
and I went from Mackinaw to pay what would 
most probably be our last visit to the scenes 
hallowed by so many sad, yet endearing memo- 
ries. We stopped at and rowed to the 

Big Rock a few miles away. It lifted from the 
water dark and frowning as it appeared to us a 
score of years before. Lichens and moss parti- 
ally covered the space from which the mass fell 
when Felden was carried to his death. The 
fresher cleavage was to us a tablet memorial of 
the sad event. 
" With a long pole to which he had attached an 
iron hook, Jim probed the secrets of the deep. 
His gratification was unbounded when he dis- 
covered that not only were the boulders holding 
down the canvas winding sheets entirely under 
sand and gravel, but the acctimulations nearly 
covered the boughs and brush placed over the 
grave. 

Madison's aged head w^hitened by eighty-two 
winters was lifted erect upon his broad should- 
ers ; and a mild August breeze coming in from 
the lake and gently circling around the little 
cove, bore upon its wings his sweetly modulated 
thanks ' to the Almighty God for his many 
mercies.' 

For a while we sat silent in deep thought, and 
then he said, "Let's go now, Mr. Jamison, I 



296 A summer's outing. 

feels secure that Mr. Jack Felden and his wife 
down thar under the sand and water, will sleep 
undisturbed. 

I rowed out of the cove, the old negro keeping 
his sad eyes rivited upon the fatal rock. We 
turned the point which hid it from the lake ; he 
seized an oar and working manfully, uttered not 
a word until we drew up under the village. 

The mental and bodily strain, however, had 
been too much for the old man. I was compelled 
to call for aid to support his tottering steps to 
our room. He staggered and fell upon his bed ; 
his massive form gave way, like a glass shattered 
by a blow. 

His mind and speech remained unimpaired. 
He positively refused to have a physician called, 
declaring if it was the Lord's will he should 
go, he would obey the will of the Lord. He lay 
for several days without a murmur or a com- 
plaint. One night I was awakened by a deep 
groan; hurrying to his bedside, a single glance 
told me his end was nearly come. For several 
hours he lay in a dull stupor, his labored breath- 
ing alone showing that life was still in his 
breast. His breathing grew fainter and fainter, 
until just as the rising sun poured through the 
window, it seemed to die away. I hastened to 
his side to close the tired faithful eyes in their 
last long sleep, when the wan lips opened to 



THE OLD MAN'S STORY. 297 

whisper, " Good-b3^e Mr. Jamison, good-bye"! 
and then as if b}^ mere will power he sat erect 
on his bed and cried in a loud voice " Bress de 
Lord ! I see Mars John ! Diner ! Jim's gwine 
home;" and then he died. 

Two Finns, fresh immigrants in the land, 
rowed me with the body to the cove. There on 
the shore in a spot shadowed at evening by the 
Big Rock we buried him. The sun hovering 
above the whispering maples lighted the last sad 
rites to the end. The waves from the lake 
stealing into the cove in mild ripples, sang wdth 
mysterious cadence a sweet, loving requiem. 
The dying day, the whispering breeze, the sigh- 
ing wavelets and the solitude seemed to my 
over-wrought senses to promise a fulfillment of 
the negro's prophecy "; that the sleepers below 
would rest undisturbed until summoned on the 
last and final call ; that until then " The Big 
Rock would keep its sad secret." 

In giving this story to the world, I feel guilt- 
less of violating any pledge of secrecy. There 
is nothing in the names mentioned to enable any 

one to probe the mystery of John . The 

terrible events of the war about his old home, 
scattered its residents, and to-day the places that 
knew them know them no more. 



A RACE WITH THE SUN. 

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